Braided river ecosystem for salmon spawning. At the top of this photograph is the Sea of Okhotsk, and below it the Oblukovina River. They flow past wetlands created by heavy rain on the west side of Kamchatka. Wetlands are the primary sign of a healthy salmon ecosystem and clouds of mosquitoes form where insects are a main food source. Salmon create a mass migration engine that brings marine-derived nutrients into river ecosystems, and the carcasses fertilize the entire Pacific Rim. Salmon bring marine-derived nutrients from the Kamchatka shelf in the Sea of Okhotsk into the eight major river systems that run off the middle range of mountains that divide Kamchatka in half; Kamchatka, Russia