Photo fact: ducks open the swimming season in the center of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky
Photo by Viktor Gumenyuk, Kamchatka.Today
The ducks brought their offspring to the waters of Kultuchny Lake for the first time in the season, Kamchatka.Today reports.
Our photojournalist Viktor Gumenyuk captured the ducklings’ first swimming attempts.
Kultuchnoye Lake is a unique piece of nature in the very center of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, a place of attraction for its residents and guests. The development of urban infrastructure, as well as the formation of a recreational environment around the lake, have led to inevitable negative consequences for the ecosystem of the reservoir. In historical retrospect, Kultuchnoye Lake was an extensive feeding and spawning pond for salmonids, the “hallmark” of the Kamchatka ichthyofauna. However, in the process of urban development, the tributaries of the lake and extensive springs were filled in, in which, according to historical data, coho and sockeye salmon, one of the most valuable salmon species, spawned. Now the typical inhabitants of the reservoir are the three-needle and nine-needle stickleback, as well as the silver crucian, introduced into the reservoir about 20 years ago. These species, unlike salmonids, are less demanding on the quality of water and bottom substrate. Ducks nest on the shore of Kultuchny, muskrats are found there.