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26 May 2021

«Marine Mammals and Fisheries – how to maintain a balance of interests»

On May 26, the Komsomolskaya Pravda editorial office held a press conference "Marine mammals and fisheries – how to maintain a balance of interests".

The speakers at the conference were Deputy Head of the Federal Agency for Fisheries Vasily Sokolov, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Vyacheslav Rozhnov, Deputy Director for Scientific Work of VNIRO Vyacheslav Bizikov, and Tatiana Shulezhko, an expert of the Longline Fishery Association, joined the discussion via video connection from Kamchatka.

The conference participants drew attention to the problems of poaching and the use of illegal fishing gear by fishermen as the causes of the marine mammals death. However, anthropogenic impact is not the only factor affecting the mortality of animals in the waters of the Russian Federation.

In particular, during the large-scale Caspian expedition carried out by the joint forces of VNIRO specialists and scientists of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the technogenic nature of the causes that caused the mass ejection of dead seals on the coast of the Caspian Sea in the period from November 2020 to May 2021 was determined. The results of an expedition conducted in May showed that only 8 animals out of 74 found were affected by unregulated illegal fishing. The influence on the mortality of animals has a seasonal factor, which was recorded in the reports of researchers over the past 100 years.

In the future, the study of the dynamics of populations of various marine mammals, the description of their life activity and mortality patterns will be one of the most relevant areas for joint research of VNIRO and RAS, implemented within the framework of the cooperation agreement concluded between Rosrybolovstvo and the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The full recording of the conference can be viewed at the following link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDSTqWS6Stc

 

Press Service VNIRO