The Khabarovski Krai (Khabarovsk region) occupies a huge part of the Russian Far East - a vast territory between 47° and 62° North; the length of this piece of land is 1800 kilometers! The territory of the region is drained by lower reaches of one of the biggest rivers of Russia - Amur, and its coasts are washed by two seas - Sea of Okhotsk and Sea of Japan. The natural diversity of the land is great - in the south magnificent, deciduous and conifer forests grow, and are inhabited by northern and southern animals. In the north, a thin taiga forest of larch and dwarf stone-pine grows, and the cold sea coast is covered with treeless tundra. Tundra is also covering the biggest mountains above the tree-line. The rivers of the region are very multifarious - from swift, boiling white-water in deep canyons to slow and meandering marshy dark creeks.
The fish-fauna of the area is almost unchanged by human activity. Some rivers belong to the Polar Ocean drainage and host typical Siberian fishes - the big Siberian Taimen is still quite numerous. The uniqueness of these Taimen stocks is the feeding - in summer and fall they prey on adult Chum Salmon. The abundance of food allows this biggest in the world salmonid fish to reach such a huge size (reliable data on specimens of 70, 80 kg exists). Fishes over 30 kg are caught here every year, and nobody is ever surprised.
Huge numbers of Pacific salmon and charrs run into the tributaries of the Sea of Okhotsk. Here, there are also a lot of big, trophy Arctic Grayling. Clear lakes, where Sockeye Salmon spawn, are also inhabited by Lake Charr, called "Neiva" and lake-resident grayling.
|