M. Erdenebat graduated in 1989 with a four-year degree in ichthyology from Russia's Technical Institute of Fisheries in Kaliningrad. In 1997 and 1998 he completed additional certificate training courses in freshwater aquaculture in both China and Malaysia. Following this conducted studies on Mongolia's major salmonids, Hucho taimen, Brachymystax lenok and Coregonus pidschian, through his work at Mongolia's Research Institute of Foresty and Wildlife. Since 1994, M. Erdenebat has been working as an ichthyologist at the Mongolian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Geoecology in Ulaanbaatar. His research there has included lake stock assessments, eco-regional fish surveys, research on Mongolia's endemic fish in the Central Asian drainage, and investigation into the environmental impacts of gold mining on water quality and fish. More recently, he has served as a liaison scientist for trans-boundary studies on the Selenge River, the primary tributary of Lake Baikal. In September of 2003 he will be continuing his research on fish populations in regions with intensive gold mining, primarily the Yeroo watershed in north-central Mongolia.

Mongolian Institute of Geoecology
Ulaan Baator, Mongolia
Email:erdebat at yahoo.com