Fauna and Flora.—Much of Kamchatka is tundra-covered; mosquitoes are a terrible plague in summer. In other places is the dense Alschovnik (Alnus maxiniowiczi) jungle coming quite close to the settlements, and notably to Petropavlovsk, often 7 ft. high in summer and difficult to penetrate even with an axe. The Kamchatkan bear makes tracks of which the natives avail them selves through this dense undergrowth, especially along the course of the Upper Kamchatka river. The slopes of the mountains are well wooded with alder, willow, birch, larch, poplar, Siberian fir and "cedar" and a species of mountain-ash. Crake, whortle and other berries are plentiful. Hunting and trapping in winter and fishing in summer are the main occupations of the natives, who rely mainly on fish for their diet and that of their dogs.
The principal kinds of salmon that visit the rivers are : Chavucha (S. orientalis), weighing about 15-2o lb. and supplying good caviare, Goltsi (S. collaris), a kind of sea trout, Keta (On chorhynchus lagocephalus), or dog salmon, commonest of all except in South Kamchatka, where the chavucha prevails, Gorbusha (0. proteus), the humpbacked or Alaskan pink salmon, Krasnaya (0. lycoodon), a red salmon which salts well, and Kizhucha (0. sanguinolentus). The keta weighs about 9 lb., and its skin gives the natives food, sails, clothes and boots, while its pale pink caviare is now much in demand. Herring and cod are numerous, but are not used by the natives except in Gizhiga and Penzhina bays, when salmon are scarce. Other fish, not much used by the natives, are Mikisha (Salmo purpurateus), Korzhuka, a kind of smelt, and Uiki (S. socialis). Crabs and lobsters are also found.
The two main fishing seasons are spring and mid-June. There are about 148 fishing stations in West Kamchatka and 61 in East Kamchatka. Jukkola, or sun-dried salmon, is the main winter food of many natives, especially in western Kamchatka ; in eastern Kamchatka diet is more varied. The sledge dogs are fed entirely on jukkola through the winter. Canning under Japanese direction, with up-to-date machinery, has been successfully started ; salmon caviare is prepared and over 2,000 tons per annum exported. A fish preserve called balyk is exported to Vladivostok and San Francisco. The chief markets for Kamchatka fish products are China and Japan, though tinned salmon finds a wider market, Of fur-bearing animals the sable (Mustela zibelliana) is the most important for the Kamchatkan hunter. Other animals hunted are the fox, especially by the Koryaks (the blue fox is only found on Komandorski islands), the brown or Kamchatkan bear (Ursus beringianus), otters, marmots, hares, wolves, wolver ines, chamois, the mountain horned sheep (Ovis nivicola), and the wild reindeer. Great precautions against forest fires are taken all
over the peninsula in view of the dependence of the people upon hunting products. The Kamchadals remove the lemming's winter store of grain and roots and replace it by caviare and fish remains.
Bird life is abundant and varied and includes ptarmigan, caper cailzie, swans, ducks, mallards, red-breasted merganser, pine grosbeak, nuthatches, woodpeckers, waxwings, coal-tits in the spruce forests, eagles, ravens, hawks, hawk owl, sea gulls and northern divers. In the tundra the snowy owl and gerfalcon are numerous, and carrion crows and magpies frequent the villages in winter.
Reindeer are bred in the north and the Koryaks rely on their reindeer herds for food, clothing and transport. Their birch bark reindeer sledges are held together by strips of undressed reindeer skin. The Lamuts keep reindeer, but also rely on hunting, and some Lamuts keep dogs for sledge purposes. Neither tribe milks the reindeer. Both these tribes are nomadic, the mosquitoes making the tundra unbearable for the reindeer in summer, so that they migrate north, often leaving the women and children behind.
The Population in 1926 was reckoned to be about 20 to 25 thousand, but the difficulties of estimating numbers of a nomad population in the climatic conditions of the peninsula are great.
The Koryak tribe extends from the Stanovoi mountains to the sea; and on the west side of Kamchatka as far south as 55° N. The Koryaks are closely related by race and language to the Chuk chi, and are divided into the Reindeer Koryaks of Gizhiga and Petropavlovsk districts, and the Maritime Koryaks of the west ; the former intermarry with the Chukchi, the latter with the Kamchadals. Jochelson describes the Koryaks as below average height, but square and muscular, with black hair, narrow eyes, bronze skin, broad cheekbones and with little facial hair. Their wood, ivory, whalebone and horn carvings are artistic and they make decorated basketwork and reindeer skin rugs. The reindeer Koryaks camp in tents and have four main annual mi grations: (I) in October they remain in the river valleys under the protection of high banks among poplar and aspen groves (2) at the end of March, before the fawning, they descend to the open tundra (3) in July they climb the mountains to the sources of the rivers (4) in autumn, at the time of the fawn festival, they return from the ridges to the tundras and river valleys.