Night chase for poachers, seizure of illegal weapons and illegally obtained animals. These are the results of the work of the operational groups of the KGBU "Directorate for the Protection of Objects of the Animal World and Protected Areas of the Primorsky Krai" in November 2015, operating with the support of the Amur Tiger Center.
According to the institution subordinated to the Department of Hunting Supervision of the Primorsky Krai, last month the state hunting inspectors of the task forces revealed 92 administrative offenses in the field of hunting. This is above the monthly average. KGBU specialists explain this by the fact that in November in most regions of the Primorsky Krai the hunting season for hoofed animals started, and poachers came out with the law-abiding hunters.
The head of one of the operational groups Nikolay Elistratov last month was forced to pursue a group of poachers at night along a forest road at high speed. The incident happened in the Frontier region of Primorye during an environmental raid. According to the inspector, the violators used the most ignoble method of killing animals: they blinded animals at night with powerful lighting devices, and when they died down, they fired at them. "Svetlyshchiki" - so among themselves inspectors call such poachers - killed three roe deer. When the inspection machine appeared, the poachers immediately set off.
“I tried to block their way into the field, but they already picked up speed and, not sparing their jeep, broke through the adjacent forest. We immediately organized a chase. Along the way, I contacted the police, but at that moment they had no opportunity to help. As a result, I was forced to pursue them for 40 kilometers along forest roads towards the city of Ussuriysk. It is interesting that at the time of illegal hunting one of them was on the trunk on the roof of a car, and when the chase started - he did not have time to get inside - and almost 40 kilometers that I was chasing them at high speed, he rode in that position. In the end, they threw the butchered carcasses of animals to the ground and disappeared. We handed over the materials of this case to the OMVD of the Pogranichny Region for the consideration of the initiation of a criminal case,” says Nikolai Yelistratov, senior task force.
Over the past month, 14 units of hunting weapons were also seized, 4 of them with a rifled barrel. In all cases, their owners lacked permits for the storage and use of weapons. According to the inspectors, recently they have increasingly begun to record such offenses.
One of the last such cases occurred in the reserve of Poltava, which is located in the Octobrsty and Ussuri regions of Primorye. Not only is any hunting prohibited in the reserve, but also when inspecting the vehicle of violators, weapons with cartridges were withdrawn. The owner did not hide the fact that he does not have permission to use it. As it turned out, the license expired for the gun, but instead of handing it over to the police, the poacher decided to use it for criminal purposes.
For violation of the reserve regime, the court will assign a fine to violators. For illegal manufacture and storage of ammunition and explosives (this powder) poachers face criminal prosecution.
“Together with the improvement of the equipment of the service of hunting supervision and the growth of the professional knowledge of inspectors, the level of preparedness of poachers is also increasing. Now, for example, they have already reached the point that, leaving for criminal fishing, they often change vehicles and even state numbers for them. Therefore, it is not so easy to punish poachers,” comments Sergey Aramilev, director of the Primorsky branch of the Amur Tiger Center. - “Making their “night adventures”, many of the poachers do not think about what they face, or they are mistaken that there is only administrative responsibility for poaching in relation to non-red animals, but this is not so. I would like to remind them that illegal “night” hunting with the use of motor vehicles constitutes a crime under Art. 258 of the Criminal Code. According to this article, as a punishment you can get not only a large fine and a previous conviction, but also to lose your favorite car or a gun, which can be confiscated and sold to the state.”
Recall that in the KGBU "Directorate for the Protection of the Animal World and Protected areas" employs 9 task forces and 15 state inspectors of regional reserves. As a result of their work, in the third quarter of 2015, 193 protocols on administrative offenses were made, 37 smooth bore and rifled weapons were withdrawn.
