Here it is - a bearish happiness!

Writes nature photographer Igor Shpilenok:

The most magical action that I have seen in the wild - a sockeye salmon spawning in the Kuril Lake, which is in the South Kamchatka Federal Reserve. The reserve is a subdivision of the Kronotsky Reserve, so in the past I was able to work it.
It was in these days of August in the lake passes the peak of the event, so let's now move to the four kilometers south of the Kronotsky tundra.

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Kuril Lake - the largest sockeye salmon spawning in Eurasia and has great fishery value. The fish spawn in the shallows of the lake and in the rivers flowing into it. Who came into the lake sockeye spawn in no hurry. First, it stands in dense clusters, each of which is concentrated tens of thousands of individuals. Fish stick closely to one another, and such clusters helicopter spots seem monolithic.
It has long been observed that fills Lake sockeye is not chaotic, and moves along the coast clockwise. Sunset fish from the lake in a shallow river to me several years could be observed on the river Gavryushke. The width of its mouth just a meter and a half, and the depth on a sandy shoal - a few centimeters - can go without wetting his shoes. However, for a sandy beach surrounding the lake, the channel becomes deeper, appear omutki overhanging the coast, driftwood, stones - that is the place where the fish can hide from the bears. A few days thousands and thousands of fish congregate at the mouth Gavryushki. Fish walks along the lake shore, splashing, teasing the crowd on the beach hungry bears, which are almost in vain for her jump into the depths. Suddenly, as if by some signal, the crowd of fish catch in the narrow and shallow estuary, forming a wave. Val boiling water and fish can knock a person. The energy of this tree is that in a few minutes broadened and deepened, seemingly impassable for large fishes track. The first ten fish in shallow water are easy victims of bears, but while animals eat them, hundreds of fishes manage to slip through the sandy shallows to relatively deep water. And so repeated several times.



This year the lake has gone more than two million sockeye salmon, which is more than enough to play this intensively hunted bears and people population.



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