Ponoi River Company Information

We think that our presence on the Ponoi has helped protect and enhance what is one of the world's finest rivers. In 1994 we succeeded in having the commercial barrier net that was killing 50 per cent of the salmon run removed from the mouth of the river. Instead, as the Russian scientists had lost their only fish counting system on the river, we embarked, with the assistance of the Atlantic Salmon Federation and the Russian scientific institution, the Polar Research Institute of Marine Fisheries and Oceanography (PINRO), a multi-layered scientific project. Much of the work has been completed but the tagging programme remains and involves all of our guests as one of the goals of tagging is to connect with anglers and make science part of their experience on the rivers, to bring them into the process so they are helping to generate useful information. On the Ponoi, the research is designed around this self-contained group of anglers, who are out on the river with their guides tagging and counting fish. During their stay at the camp, the resident scientist teaches them about the river and biology of the fish and also provides them with amazing data on recaptured salmon. Moreover the tagging is a part of the salmon stocks monitoring programme that PINRO runs on the Kola Peninsula. All the data collected through this programme are further used as a basis for management decisions taken by the Russian Government, local fisheries management authorities and internationally. For instance, quotas for Atlantic salmon fisheries in Russia are set annually by the State on the basis of scientific advice on the Total Allowable Catch (TAC) provided by PINRO. The allocation of quotas between rivers and fishing right holders is also done in accordance with scientific recommendations. PINRO, as a state-run scientific institution under the Russian State Fisheries Committee, is a part of the international scientific community represented in the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) established in 1902, where Russia is a member and which is a major scientific advisor for almost all international regional fisheries commissions or arrangements in the North Atlantic. Dr. Sergei Prusov represents Russia to the ICES North Atlantic Salmon Working Group that is one of many Working Groups in ICES responsible for working out the scientific advice for international fisheries management commissions. It is exactly to this Working Group all the data collected here on the Ponoi and other salmon rivers throughout the North Atlantic area are brought for analysis and assessment made jointly by scientists from other countries with salmon rivers. Finally results of such an assessment are forwarded as scientific advice to NASCO - North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization, an international management body responsible for Atlantic salmon to which Russia is a contracting Party. We hope you can now appreciate the importance of what we are doing here on this pristine river with respect to science and how the research program on Ponoi contributes to the overall process of salmon stock management both in Russia and internationally and in the long run to conservation of Atlantic salmon and preservation of this valuable resource for future generations.