River Monsters - Russian Killer

This episode of RM focused on the mighty of Amur river of "Mother Russia", and I have to confess that it was an interesting one.

Firstly, because of the fish. As JW tends to do, he cannot resist the lure of a good fish - make that catfish - tale: the first third or so of the episode centers about the Amur catfish and the Soldatov catfish - kin to the mighty wels catfish of the show's first season. The various flashbacks to the show's previous seasons and episodes didn't take much out of the episode, though they did take up time - maybe something that the show's producers intended to do.

Secondly, the Kaluga. I was impressed at the fish's alleged size and reputation and power: the sturgeons are an ancient breed of fish and to have some of the grow to impressive, almost mammoth-like proportions as they age isn't too improbable, in my opinion. But...

But despite the episode's title (see above), it was focused not on the fish - the Kaluga, the catfish, even the chum salmon that was so prominent in the episode - but on their environment, which is getting, frankly, polluted by the actions of humanity (the Russians in this case). They are destroying their world by destroying the natural resources (something that the Putin-Medvediev administration is notorious about), as well as overfishing, both the salmon fish (the red caviar) and the sturgeons (black). Having, in my youth, tasted both, I know why they cost such a high price even if poached - but poaching is wrong, and it leads to extinction of species - in Russia, USA, etc.

The destructive impact of the local fishing industry on its' surroundings is evident throughout the episode - the near absence of wildlife (other than the fish) in this particular episode contrasts sharply with most of other RM episodes, when there is some unplanned encounter with a local Land animal - for example, the grizzly bear in Alaska, when JW was fishing for the white sturgeon instead. The exceptions to this rule occur when JW was fishing for the wels catfish in Europe, for example, or for the alligator gar in the USA - both examples of the heavily urban, overfished countries. Russia, apparently, is another one of this countries...only, unlike Europe or USA, people too are dying-out, as shown by the now-struggingl and dying-out fishing communities shown in this ep - something to think about!

And so, unlike the previous, "American Killers" episode, the "Russian Killer" (no pun intended) revealed something new and interesting about our world in general and the world of fish and fishing in particular. I hope that the rest of S4 will be just as good.