Poachers in Kamchatka are changing the course of rivers to catch salmon

The cost of red caviar can jump up to 15,000 rubles per 1 kg, despite the expected impressive catch in key fishing regions. One of the possible reasons for this anomaly is the theft of salmon going to spawn by poachers who change the flow of rivers in Kamchatka.

In the Ust-Bolsheretsky district of the Kamchatka Territory, huge shoals of salmon will spawn from the Sea of Okhotsk into local rivers in two weeks. For the sake of profit, poachers are ready to make any sacrifice, attempts by unidentified persons to change the mouth of the spawning river were even filmed from a helicopter.

"Putting a net in the mouth of a river is a crime, but here, you know, there is such a groove — it just happened to appear. And there you can put a small net, make a small pen. The fish is going up, it makes a bridge on this dam, it is directly bailed out with a net," said ichthyologist Dmitry Arshavsky.

Such a barbaric method of fishing can lead to the extinction of an entire salmon population in a particular area.

Leonid Dobrovolsky, head of the Public Relations and Media Department of Ust-Bolsheretsky district, stressed that the district administration had not issued permits for excavation work at the mouth of the Khomutina River. According to him, the administration is already aware of the incident and has requested information.

The owners of fishing sites are under suspicion, in particular, the Zapadnoye M company, registered in the village of Oktyabrsky. Instead of an office at the organization's address, there is an apartment building, the locals have not heard of the company itself.

The organization is headed by businessman and associate of the ex-governor of the Kamchatka Territory Alexander Yashkin. It is noted that he is already known for evading payment of 60 million rubles. Rosrybolovstvo and the prosecutor's office have already started checking, and all work on the site has been stopped. It is also necessary to establish the exact damage to the environment.

"If suddenly there is a powerful flood or flood along the river, then the area may be severely eroded technically, and then the riverbed may change its direction, the rest of this estuary will die out," said Mikhail Bolgov, professor of the Department of Land Hydrology at Moscow State University.

In January 2025, inspectors recorded 212 cases of illegal fishing, but in the three weeks of June the number increased to 388. The interest of poachers is in the rising prices of caviar and red fish.

Environmentalist Tatiana Mikhailova stressed that previously fish in the region did not cost as much as it currently costs. It is noted that fish, caviar and shellfish have become inaccessible delicacies even for Kamchatka, which provokes buyers to go to the "black market".

On June 26, the Siberian Transport Police announced the initiation of 11 criminal cases in the Novosibirsk river port under Article 256 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("Illegal extraction (fishing) of aquatic biological resources") against poachers violating the spawning ban. It was clarified that the violators caused damage of almost 500 thousand rubles.