Poaching, over-fishing threaten Russian brown bears

From Environmental Correspondent Gary Striker

SOUTH KAMCHATKA SANCTUARY, Russia (CNN) -- Brown bears have gorged on thick schools of plump sockeye salmon in a remote, pristine wilderness in Russia for ages. But poachers looking for ingredients in traditional Asian medicines could take away the halcyon days of the furry giants.

The greatest dilemma bears in the South Kamchatka Sanctuary used to face was choosing where to dine. They move from waterway to waterway, fishing each in turn, depending on where the runs of sockeye are found.

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"There's a large concentration of bears here and the food source is running out and they're starting to go into their roaming mode," said Bill Leacock of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), a New York-based conservation organization. The WCS is working with the Russian government on a joint study of brown bears around Kurilskoe Lake.

Most bears move to another to the other side of Kurilskoe Lake in Kamchatka, a mountainous peninsula in Eastern Russia that points toward the northern tip Japan. Others wander to nearby creeks where sockeye runs have yet to begin.

Feasting on salmon, they build up fat reserves needed for hibernation. They could not survive the long winter ahead without healthy salmon runs.

"That's really driving the whole ecosystem here. And allowing us to maintain high densities of bears," Leacock said.

Brown bears live in Europe, Asia and North America, but one of the largest and most densely concentrated populations inhabits the Russian sanctuary.

Russian law protects the bears, close cousins of the American grizzlies, but they still face threats from poachers.

"Within the sanctuary, in a period of ten days before, we found five poached bears, including one bear that we captured outside the sanctuary and put a collar on. He moved nearly 40 miles and was killed and slit open for his gallbladder," said Leacock.

Bear gallbladders are used in Asian folk remedies and can bring poachers hundreds of dollars for each organ. Russian authorities estimate that poachers slaughter as many as 2,000 bears die in Kamchatka every year. Trophy hunters legally kill hundreds more.

The onslaught has caused a dramatic drop in the bear population, reducing the number to between 6,000 and 10,000.

"Even if we have a population of 10,000 bears here, there's a real danger that the densities could really plummet if these trends continue," Leacock said.

The bears face another threat as well. Fish poachers could overharvest the salmon, wiping out the bears' major source of food.

The joint study seeks to find conservation measures that can save Kamchatka's brown bears.

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