Fish resources in the northern part of the Volga-Akhtuba floodplain under unusual hydrological and meteorological conditions of the year 2006

The Volga-Akhtuba floodplain faced environmentally critical situation which arose as the result of a combination of an extremely cold winter, an exceptionally low water spring flood and a longstanding dry, hot summer. In the article the scale of fish loss due to winter suffocation of the fish stocks in 2005- 2006, the conditions and peculiarities of the fish reproductive cycle, the state of the lake system and harvesting of fish fingerlings are described.