Let’s Save Nature Together: Stroytransgaz Replenishes Fish Resources

Environmental care and biodiversity conservation in places of presence is one of the main principles of STG Group in the course of its activities. Every year, as part of its projects, STG contributes to the replenishment of fish resources by releasing fry of various fish species into their natural habitat. In July of this year, fry were released in two cities at once – Kaliningrad, where a large-scale cultural and educational cluster is being built, and Perm, where a bridge is being built across the Chusovaya River with approaches to it.

Over 3,000 sterlet fry were released into the Kama reservoir as part of the construction of roads included in the project to build the bridge across the Chusovaya River. Sterlet is a unique species, which is listed in the Red Book of the International Union for Conservation of Nature due to the degradation of the stock. Restoring the population of valuable and especially valuable fish species is one of the priority state objectives. The sterlet populations of the Dnieper, Don, Kuban, Ural, Sura, Upper and Middle Kama rivers are listed in the Red Book of the Russian Federation as endangered. Prior to release, the water biological resources were tested for compliance with sanitary and epidemiological requirements.

 

Sterlet Fry

“The construction of the bridge across the Chusovaya River is a special project in terms of the use of water resources. Work on the key construction site is carried out directly in the water basin, so control and measures to minimize the impact on the environment are performed on an ongoing basis. Those include protection from pollution and clogging, chemical analysis of water and laboratory research, prevention of coastal destruction, and many others. Subsequently, we have to release more than 94,000 sterlet fry,” said Maksim Smagin, Director of the Permsky Krai Projects Implementation Directorate.

 

Basins with Whitefish Fry

 

Process of Calculating the Average Weight of Whitefish Fry by Uliana Kharitonova, environmental expert of LLC STG-Zapad

Release of Fry into the Curonian Lagoon

“Not to disturb the natural balance, to have as little impact on the environment as possible, and to strictly follow the design documentation recommendations – these are the principles LLC STG-Zapad adheres to when constructing the cultural cluster facilities. Since our construction site is located in the water protection zone of the Pregolya River, this obliges us to adhere to a certain environmental programme. For example, we suspend pile driving during spring spawning. Vibration and noise while driving piles into the soil could frighten fish during the breeding season,” said Dmitry Rzhannikov, General Director of LLC STG-Zapad.

Over 7,000 whitefish fry were released under the bulrush in different places of the Curonian Lagoon in Kaliningrad. They do this in the evening so that the fry do not become easy prey for predators. The released fish will grow up and go to the Baltic Sea, and in 4–5 years they will return to the Curonian Lagoon to spawn. Whitefish is a valuable fish from the salmon family, listed in the Red Book.

“The whitefish is grown by the Glavrybvoda workshop located in the Curonian Spit National Park. Thorough preparations take place until the “kids” are sent for free swimming. Whitefish are caught in November–December, after which their spawn is fertilized and loaded into incubators for three months. A larva, and then a fry up to a weight of 1 gram is grown,” said Uliana Kharitonova, environmental expert of LLC STG-Zapad.