Polyus has partnered with environmental organisations in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Irkutsk and Magadan regions to help recover the populations of endangered species of fish native to these territories.
The Company’s program for the recovery of aquatic bioresources in the Magadan Region was launched in 2017 when over 150,000 young peled, reared with the help of Polyus, were released into the Kolyma River and Kolyma Reservoir.
In 2018, the Company helped to raise 400,000 broad whitefish and 1,500 Siberian sturgeon fingerlings in the Magadan Region. Siberian sturgeon is an endangered fish species listed in the regional Red Book of threatened species.
The experimental project for raising juvenile broad whitefish and sturgeon has achieved significant regional importance, as the species selected by Polyus’ ecologists and local environmental experts are rare for the area.
Broad whitefish were transported from the Leningrad Region and sturgeon from the Primorye Territory, and the fingerlings were then reared for three months at an acclimation hatchery.
After three months in the hatchery, the fingerlings were transferred to the Duskanya river estuary in the Tenkinsky District by a truck equipped with two isothermal tanks of four and two cubic meters. Despite a total distance of just 390 km, the journey took over 10 hours due to treacherous driving conditions, and the accompanying experts were forced to stop several times to check on the fingerlings.
Alexey Yeremeyev, environmental engineer at Polyus Magadan, said:
This experiment is of great importance to all of us. We cannot predict how the broad whitefish and sturgeon will adjust to the wild of the Kolyma waters, but we plan to monitor the situation and continue with our program into next year.
The scientists are now monitoring the fish populations in the Kolyma River. The Company will be continuing its regional bioresources recovery program into 2019, with a new fish species to be selected for release into the waters of the Magadan Region.
Polyus is also running a number of other biodiversity conservation projects in other regions across its operations.
In 2018, the Company supported local ecologists in the Krasnoyarsk Territory in releasing 96,000 young grayling into the Yenisey River. The video footage of the release is available at: https://7ka.tv/news/71564
Polyus Verninskoye also financed the raising of 223,540 grayling and 29,140 peled fingerlings in the Irkutsk Region in 2018. The fingerlings were then released into the Bratsk Reservoir.
Polyus is planning to allocate more than RUB 1 million in 2019 to finance the recovery of the aquatic bioresources near the Kuranakh deposits in the Republic of Sakha.