Sakhalin roundtable focuses on bears and salmon: 2026 Far East Pacific salmon returns fall to lowest in recent years

On November 8, 2026, SakhalinMedia and the publishing house Gubernskiye Vedomosti, with support from the Regional Academy of Management, held a roundtable titled "The Bear Problem in Sakhalin Oblast: Human Conflicts, Food Base and Regional Solutions." Participants included biologists, hunting specialists and representatives of animal protection organizations. Vitaly Nikitin, chief researcher at the salmon laboratory of the Sakhalin branch of the Russian Federal Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography (VNIRO), was invited to attend as an expert on the bear food base.

At the meeting, Nikitin noted that the decline in Russian Far East Pacific salmon returns in even-numbered years has been evident since 2018, and by 2026 the indicator had reached its lowest level in recent years. He explained that at the current stage extreme hydrological phenomena are increasing, including marine heatwaves formed under the influence of changes in the world ocean, which have direct and indirect effects on salmon survival during the marine life stage and at the end of the anadromous migration, with pink salmon (粉鲑) hit hardest. Against this background, during 2021–2022, 2023–2024 and 2025–2026, the survival rate of even-year pink salmon in the Sea of Okhotsk from autumn to summer declined markedly.

In terms of regional distribution, the situation in northern Sakhalin Island—the northeast and northwest coasts—is more favorable than in the south of the island and on Iturup Island. Nikitin said that, compared with pink salmon, the negative impact of climate change on chum salmon (大麻哈鱼) in the Sakhalin-Kuril region appeared much later. Although the release of chum salmon juveniles from salmon hatcheries has increased year by year, a downward trend in chum salmon catches had already emerged in the early 2020s, and by the mid-2020s catches fell sharply, similar to what Japanese artificially bred chum salmon had previously experienced. This year's chum salmon catch is among the lowest levels.

As of October 19, about 12,000 tonnes of Pacific salmon had been caught in the Sakhalin-Kuril region. The decline in pink salmon numbers has affected the replenishment of its spawning stock in rivers along the southwest and southeast coasts of Sakhalin, as well as in Aniva Bay, Terpeniya Bay and Iturup Island. Nikitin assessed the situation in the remaining areas as satisfactory.

Regarding the bear food base, Nikitin explained that brown bears can eat a wide variety of foods, and more than 80 plant species have been confirmed in their diet. This predator's unique ability to use plant feed allows it to inhabit a variety of habitats. From early summer until the start of the mass spawning migration of Pacific salmon in mid-August, plant feed forms the basis of the brown bear diet. In the early fattening period (late August, September to October), with the abundant appearance of spawning salmon, herbaceous feed accounts for a very small share of the bear diet. By the end of August, berries and dwarf pine nuts in northern Sakhalin become the main plant fattening feed; in the south of the island, in addition to berries, young plant shoots and roots are also eaten.

Nikitin said that, in addition to Pacific salmon, the bear diet also includes other feeds, and it is presumed that the state of the bear food base can be regarded as satisfactory, since no bear attacks on people were recorded during the spawning migrations of pink salmon and chum salmon.