Under the guise of a pandemic: the actual legalization of poaching is being prepared in Russia

While the country is fighting against the coronavirus, officials are promoting very dubious initiatives. At the end of April, a draft of the new hunting rules was published, which includes hunting with loops, hunting in places of rest for migratory birds and hunting from vehicles.

So far, regulation.gov.ru is discussing these initiatives publicly, and until May 18 there is a chance to block them by voting against it, Greenpeace reports.

The new rules will lead to the death of not only rare and valuable species of animals, and mass production of birds in places of their nesting and stops on migration, but also greatly facilitate poaching.

Hunting with loops

Permission for the widespread harvesting of grouse, grouse, and ptarmigan using hinges will inevitably lead to the death of other animals living in the same places, among which are as rare as manul and snow leopard, or commercially valuable as musk deer. Moreover, the poacher, detained with loops, but without prey, will avoid punishment, since this tool will become legal. But it is prohibited by the Berne Convention for the Protection of Wild Fauna and Flora and Natural Habitats in Europe. Moreover, on the basis of long experience, which proved the unreasonableness and danger of its use: only in a quarter of cases does the “target animal” get there, while in the rest, others that suffocate or maim, and then die. For example, wolves that fall into the loop with one paw bite it off to save themselves, and in a day or two they inevitably die.

Hunting in places of mass stops of migratory birds

If the current project lifts the current ban on spring hunting for geese in places of rest on the way from wintering, then this will not only undermine their numbers, but also the number of other birds, rare and endangered, gathering in the same camps.

Hunting using vehicles

The use of high-speed transport - cars, boats or helicopters - in which the hunter, according to the new rules, will be able to ride without disassembling his weapons, that is, with a gun ready for battle, will also inevitably lead to an increase in poaching. It will be difficult to prove the fact of firing from vehicles. If it is impossible to carry loaded weapons in a case now, then after the abolition of these rules the following is inevitable. By the road along which the hunter is riding with a gun ready for shooting, he notices an animal, kills him without going outside, and then takes the gun and returns for prey without him. That’s the way now, and in large numbers, poachers in the Far East, killing tigers and leopards. There is another option: a hunter receives permission in the spring to shoot a duck, kills one, and then continues to kill others with a loaded gun from a boat or a car, and it will be impossible to prove the fact of shooting at them ...

All these rules are basically poaching and they should not be accepted in any case, experts are sure, urging all those who care to vote against them until May 18 at regulation.gov.ru.