Programs
Guido's Kamchatka Trip ReportNews & Program Updates
Date of trip: June, 2006
Report written by: Gudio Rahr, Executive Director, Wild Salmon Center
WSC board members Jack Stanford and Sam Walton and WSC staff Sam Chilcote and Roman Kultajev and I just returned from Kamchatka and meetings with our Russian partners.
It was an amazing trip. We were joined by Kamchatka Vice Governor Alexander Chistyakov for a time as we flew north from Petropavlovsk. We got a close look at an erupting volcano and visited the geothermally active Uzon Caldera and Valley of the Geysers. We ended the day at the Utkholok River Biostation on the upper west-side of the peninsula.
The Utkholok was running low and clear, but there was a strong run of estuarine rainbow trout and the first waves of pink and chum salmon were staging in the estuary. On one boat trip to the mouth of the Utkholok we saw 14 brown bears! The biostation was humming with activity, and American and Russian scientists reported progress on research and ecosystem monitoring work.
Utkholok biostation July 2006
Kol salmon migration
We then flew south along Kamchatka's "salmon coast" to the Kol Biostation. The Kol was also flowing low and clear on a labyrinth of channels that wove through the lush floodplain forest. We saw many brown bears and Stellar's sea eagles, otters, and a frenzy of seals and sea lions were feeding on salmon at the river mouth. I watched waves of salmon—thirty to sixty at time—thrash over the gravel bar at the mouth of the Kol. From a dock at the biostation we could see a constant procession of chum, pink and cherry (masu) salmon and Dolly Varden char working their way upstream.
Naturally, we spent some time fishing. We caught several species, but most impressive were the ocean-bright chum, which took a fly very well and when hooked made long runs downstream with many head shaking leaps out of the water.
A delegation of high level staff—and key partners of the Wild Salmon Center—from the United Nations Development Program, Global Environmental Facility and Russian Ministry of Natural Resources, as well as Vasily Kurkin, the Head of Sobolevo District, arrived in camp to discuss program outcomes and future conservation objectives, and to tour the river and biostation.
I felt very proud of what we and our partners have accomplished in Kamchatka. The biostations were well organized and bustling with the energy and enthusiasm of the research teams. Most importantly, the Kol—from horizon to horizon and from the mountains to the sea—is now protected within the new Kol River Salmon Refuge.
We've laid the groundwork for exciting new opportunities in Kamchatka.