East Asian countries are importing between 50% and 90% more Russian sockeye salmon than Russia is reporting as caught, according to a new report from WWF and TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network.
Analysis of data from officially published sources reveals that from 2003 to 2005, the estimated excess quantity of Russian sockeye salmon entering East Asian markets was between 8,000 and 15,000 tonnes each year, worth US$40–76 million.
“The governments of Russia, Japan, China and South Korea need to tighten up on the Russian salmon trade to distinguish legal from illegal products in the market place and to protect salmon from overfishing,” says Craig Kirkpatrick, TRAFFIC’s East Asia Director.
“The Russian government’s records appear to under-estimate the true catch substantially.”
Possible reasons for the under-estimate include illegal catches or fishermen not reporting fully how much salmon they catch (two components of Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported, or IUU, fisheries), or flaws in the government’s reporting system itself.
