Three thousand fry of a unique fish, Boganid char, were transported from Norilsk to “Maltat” Ltd in the Krasnoyarsk Region and to the Federal Center of Selection and Genetics for Fish Farming in the Leningrad Region to raise broodstock of the valuable species of northern fish.

This is a successful completion of the next stage of the program "Monitoring and artificial reproduction of char of the genus Salvelinus of Lake Sobachye", which is being implemented with the participation of scientists from the Federal Research Center "Krasnoyarsk Science Center of SB RAS", Siberian Federal University and Krasnoyarsk State Agrarian University with financial support from the Project Office for the Development of the Arctic .

“The goal of the project is to establish artificial reproduction in aquaculture of the unique Taimyr fish, which surpasses any other fish in terms of benefits for a human organism. Krasnoyarsk scientists for the first time presented the results of research on the Boganid char in 2019 to the Project Office for the Development of the Arctic. This fish, which is found in nature on the Taimyr Peninsula, is a little more difficult to raise than trout. However, its breeding is very promising for our country because it is a more cold-loving species than traditional aquaculture objects. The success of the project will help both to enrich the diet of Russians with valuable Arctic products and will contribute to the preservation of the Russian Arctic biodiversity, ” says Nikolai Doronin, Chairman of the Board of PODA.

The Boganid char, which is found in Taimyr, is recognized as one of the most useful fish in the world, since it contains a record amount of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) per unit of its weight - 32.8 mg / g. According to this indicator, 20-30 grams of this fish is equivalent, for example, to more than 12 kilograms of tilapia.

In September 2020, scientists from the Institute of Biophysics SB RAS and Siberian Federal University (SibFU) visited the Lake Sobachye (Taimyr Dolgan-Nenets District, Krasnoyarsk Region). For a month, theomembers of the expedition caught char to obtain eggs and to perform artificial insemination. The eggs fertilized in the field were delivered to the Norilsk fish hatchery for further incubation. In January 2021, the eggs obtained during the expedition, incubated in the factory, reached viable stages, and larvae began to hatch. By May, the fry had reached the size necessary for its transportation to the "mainland". 3000 fry weighing 1.5 grams each were delivered to the FCSGF (Ropsha settlement, Leningrad Region) and Maltat Ltd (Primorsk, Krasnoyarsk Region) to start breeding broodstock of a unique char species.

Scientists from the Institute of Biophysics SB RAS, SibFU and the Krasnoyarsk State Agrarian University, together with employees of the enterprises, will conduct research at various stages of the char development in order to understand the reasons for the record content of PUFAs in its biomass and to develop optimal methods for the fish maintenance in aquaculture. Aquaculture is the only acceptable way of sustainable use of the most valuable fish resources of low-forage Arctic lakes, where commercial fishing is inefficient or impossible (except for traditional fisheries of indigenous people) due to their extremely low natural food base.

The scientific supervisor of the project, Corresponding Member of RAS, Mikhail Ivanovich Gladyshev, comments on the next stage of the project implementation:

“Many people now can hear the term “Arctic diet” as a synonym for healthy functional nutrition. Indeed, many food products obtained from plants and animals living in environmentally clean regions of the Arctic have unique biochemical properties. Among them is the Boganid char (char), which is capable of accumulating in its muscle tissue - fillets an extremely high content of PUFA, protectors of cardiovascular diseases, namely eicosapentaenoic and docosahexaenoic acids (EPA and DHA). According to our research data, this ability of the Boganid char is not only due to its habitat - cold and clean lakes, but also by its genetic characteristics.

After we discovered in 2018 the unique ability of the Boganid char from the reserved Lake Sobachye to accumulate EPA and DHA, whose deficiency in the human diet largely determines the current outbreak of cardiovascular diseases, there arose questions, firstly, about the preservation of its population with a unique genotype, and secondly, about the possibility of supplying this component of the Arctic diet to as many Russians as possible. It is for this purpose that we, in collaboration with specialists from “Glavrybvod” and the Krasnoyarsk State Agrarian University, which has a department of fish farming, organized with the support of the Maltat fishery enterprise, are creating broodstock of the Boganid char.

According to our plan, the presence of such broodstock will allow, first of all, to support the char population, and secondly, to produce marketable products with unique nutritional properties, for the whole population in Russia, rather than only for the residents of the Far North. However, there is still a lot of research work to be done, but the very first important step is the incubation of eggs at the Norilsk enterprise "Glavrybvoda" and the transfer of fry from Taimyr to the enterprises of the Leningrad Region and to the south of the Krasnoyarsk Region".