WWF Russia is asking Russia’s federal fishery agency to implement a temporary ban on halibut fishing off Kamchatka and in the Northern Sea of Okhotsk.

Ecologists wrote to Ilya Shestakov, the head of Rosrybolovstvo, citing a "critical decline" in halibut stocks in the fishing areas of Russia’s Far Eastern Basin. Between 2019 and 2020, the stocks have decreased by three to four times, researchers said.

WWF proposed Russia ban halibut longline fishing off the coast of Kamchatka and in the northern part of the Sea of Okhotsk.