The cultivation of valuable northern fish species in factories is preferable to its release into water bodies, which, due to their natural characteristics, are not able to feed a large number of biological resources, Mikhail Gladyshev, head of the Biophysics Institute’s experimental hydroecology laboratory (Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences).
The head of the Federal Agency for Fishery, Ilya Shestakov, said that will require the construction of two fish hatcheries. The factories available now in our region are insufficient. The president of Nornickel Vladimir Potanin noted, that the company is ready to implement projects to create such capacities.
“It’s better to grow this fish in a factory environment, if we want to exploit aquatic biological resources. It shouldn’t not be released into water bodies, where it will die of hunger. 90 percent of salmon in Norway, is being grown in the factories, and our fish is more valuable than salmon”, the scientist said.
According to him, the northern reservoirs are oligotrophic. They have a small food base, and there is not a lot of fish. At the same time, the release of fry is possible only after restoration of the food base.
“We need to wait until the food supply will be restored and to see what species we should put there. Only after that we can carry out this release with accurate calculations. In a year or two, these calculations can be made”, Gladyshev concludes.
A fish hatchery operated in Norilsk since 1986. It was built by the Norilsk сombine in Soviet times. The factory is collecting caviar of valuable fish species. It organizes the incubation, rearing and releasing of juveniles into the Taimyr water bodies.
Text: Victor Tsaryov, Photo: Polina Lyubimaya
