Sustainable Aquaculture in the Baltic Sea Region of Russia: Ecotoxicological Issues of Restocking Wild Salmon and Whitefish Populations

Abstract

It is widely recognized that aquaculture plays an important role in rural development, contributing significantly to food availability, household food security, and income generation in particular. In developing sustainable aquaculture in the Baltic Sea region of Russia, it is essential to strike a balance between the need for aquaculture development and the need for natural resource conservation, especially in the case of Atlantic Salmon and Whitefish-the most valuable object of fishery, which almost lost their native spawning areas due to negative anthropogenic impacts. Without sufficient information about the accumulation of dangerous pollutants in fish tissues it is hard to develop a sustainable strategy for restocking populations of wild Salmonids and Whitefish in their natural habitats. In this paper, the accumulation of heavy metals in the tissues of wild Salmonids and Whitefish caught for artificial reproduction and their fry from the state hatcheries of northwest Russia was studied with the use of voltammetry, X-ray fluorescence analysis, and capillary electrophoresis. Analysis of the obtained data showed that significant bioaccumulation of heavy metals happens during growth and feeding after Salmon fry are released into the wild. This study demonstrates the necessity of improving state hatcheries with automatic control systems for ecological parameters.