Anglers of the capital and the Kyiv region have a reason to celebrate. On October 22 ten thousand young carp, silver carp, grass carp, and pike were introduced into the waters of the Kyiv Reservoir. This was the first of four scheduled stages of the Kyiv Sea stocking, following the mass death of fish in February 2010. As it is known, at the time an abrupt water discharge led to tons of fish being pressed against almost a meter-thick layer of ice, and they simply suffocated under the pressure.
The head of the State Fishery Committee Viktor Dronyk told journalists that the state finally allotted 4.4 billion hryvnias to renew the fish reserves lost during the winter. This sum, according to the official, will help put about 600,000 local species of fish into the waters of the Kyiv Sea, and about three million fish in the Dnipro cascade by the end of October 2010. Generally, by the end of 2010 the State Fishery Committee plans to put seven million young fish (including sturgeon, pikeperch, silver carp, carp, and grass carp) into all Ukrainian internal water bodies.
Dronyk told The Day’s correspondent that they decided to repopulate the Kyiv Reservoir with fish precisely at this time because the water cooled down to a temperature in which the fish feel comfortable. “If the fish were transported in a heat of 30-40 degrees centigrade, just imagine what would happen in the tank!” summarized the head of the State Fishery Committee.
The released young fish are two-year-old. “The silver carp was growing for two years from a roe-corn of young fish: its weight grew from 20 grams to 100-150 grams,” explained Dmytro, an experienced fisherman present at the stocking. It will take the two-year-old silver carp two more years to mature completely and raise up seed. Pike, carp, and grass carp will raise up seed even later — in three years. Tolokun’s anglers are getting ready to break holes and fill them with reed to ensure small fish will endure the winter in good condition.
However, it is not only the severe winter that threatens the fish. According to Dronyk, about 10,000 poachers, who caused the state losses in the sum of 100 million hryvnias, were recently caught in Ukraine. At this, the number of those who want to make profit by means of illegal fishing does not decrease because the legal punishment for the violators is too lax: a warning or a fine (the minimal fine is 17 hryvnias). Therefore the head of the State Fishery Committee suggests increasing the minimal fine for poaching to 510 hryvnias.
Meanwhile the public requires an even more severe punishment. As Oleksandr Chystiakov, the head of the All-Ukrainian Council of the Fishermen Association of Ukraine, told The Day, the bill on poaching elaborated by the Association suggests increasing fines by at least 100 times — to 1,700 hryvnias. “However, we agreed with the Ministry of Finance to increase them only by 80 times — to 1,360 hryvnias,” he told The Day. In addition, Chystiakov said, about 20 amendments to the Administrative and Criminal Codes of Ukraine regarding poaching were prepared. “We also suggest imprisoning fishermen who cause mass death of fish (using electric fishing rods, explosives or poison). One should also introduce an article concerning ‘covering up’ poaching, and free Ukrainian rivers from industrial catching, creating recreation areas instead,” he explained.
The State Fishery Committee predicts that next year it will really limit the industrial-scale fishing of some species. In particular, Dronyk spoke about decreasing quotas for catching pikeperch in the basin of the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea to 50 tons per year, and at the Dnipro cascade to 100-150 tons, down from the current 250 tons. “According to scientific estimates, in order to renew the fish stock which existed in the early 1990s, it is necessary to allot 30 million hryvnias over 3-4 years,” said Dronyk. According to the official, in total they are asking for about 240 million hryvnias from the budget for the needs of the sector (fish protection activity, stocking, salaries, updating equipment, and science development) for the next year.
