Several days are left before the complete prohibition on catch of muksun

Several days are left before the official prohibition on catch of whitefish – muksun. It is expected that the normative act about introduction of prohibition on catch of muksun on the territory of Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug and Tomsk Oblast will be signed already this week.

It was declared by the deputy director of the department of natural-resource regulation of Yamal Vyacheslav Zhedulev to journalists of regional mass media. The prohibition is connected with abrupt decrease of whitefish reserves.

The document is in the Federal Agency for Fishery. Only a signature of the Minister for agriculture is necessary. After the document comes to force, the Russian Agency for Fishery will bring in changes to permits for fish-catch, which were given earlier. Catch of muksun is prohibited also for indigenous population. An issue of compensations of losses for fishing communities and indigenous population is being discussed, as Vyacheslav Zhedulev notes. State of reserves of basic game-fish in the Ob basin was discussed on the sitting of the fishery economic council of Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. Specialists of the State Research and Production Centre for Fisheries presented the analytical note, according to which whole whitefish are in critical state. Sterlet, nelma, muksun, chir (round-nosed whitefish), peled and pydschjan are losing their number and biomass. Thus, number of muksun during the latest years 8-10 times decreased. The following aspects influence on state of reserves of precious whitefish species: level of natural reproduction, fishing intensity, process of artificial reproduction of biological resources, poaching and decrease of favorable places for wintering and spawning. If not to change the situation cardinally, number of whitefish will continue decreasing. It is permitted to catch muksun only for artificial reproduction, as the chief of the office of ecological and raw material researches at the State Research and Production Centre for Fisheries Andrey Matkovskiy notes. In the opinion of the participants of the sitting, it needs to change rules of fishery in order to correct the situation. Not the system of quotas can correct the situation, but change of fishing dates, what will allow shoals to go to spawn. As we should note, the total fish catch in Tyumen Oblast on official catches did not reach the level of the 80-s. Fifty percents of the catch are on the share of Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug, 46 percent – Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug and 4 percent – the south of Tyumen Oblast.