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Illegal January 2009 argali helicopter hunting case in the Altai Republic reopened
Illegal Hunting Case Reopened After Huffhttp://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/illegal-hunting-case-reopened-after-huff/389296.html
12 November 2009By Maria Antonova
Investigative Committee chief Alexander Bastrykin reopened an investigation Wednesday into whether charges should be filed against survivors of a party of government officials who were illegally hunting endangered sheep when their helicopter crashed in January.
Bastrykin’s announcement came as an outcry grew over his decision to quietly close the investigation in August and — embarrassingly — just a day after his committee awarded Altai Governor Alexander Berdnikov, whose deputy is a suspect in the case, with a medal for cooperating with investigators.The Investigative Committee first opened an investigation into the illegal hunt of argali sheep in the Altai republic in April, about three months after the crash of the helicopter carrying Altai Deputy Governor Anatoly Bannykh and the president’s envoy to the State Duma, Alexander Kosopkin. While Bannykh was among the four survivors, Kosopkin was one of seven people who died in the crash.The investigation was closed in August because “all the people who can be charged in this case … died during the crash,” while the survivors, including Bannykh, “did not take any actions to pursue or shoot the animals,” Bastrykin said in a written statement sent to the Altai legislature after local lawmakers asked him for an update on the investigation in September.
The statement, a copy of which was obtained by The Moscow Times, lists five deceased people as suspects of illegal hunting by helicopter, is dated Oct. 13 and is signed by Bastrykin himself.
The statement only surfaced last weekend, inciting public outrage over Bastrykin’s decision to blame only the dead for breaking the law.
Moreover, Berdnikov, the Altai governor who also has been implicated in the hunting trip by national media, received a medal from the Investigative Committee on Tuesday during Police Day celebrations. The medal, “For Cooperation,” was presented to Berdnikov by Bastrykin’s deputy Andrei Mushatov for Berdnikov’s “cooperation in the effective work of investigators,” according to a statement on the regional government’s official web site.
On Wednesday, the Investigative Committee suddenly showed interest in the case again, with Bastrykin ordering “procedural control authorities to closely look at the case’s materials … and check the completeness of the investigation,” according to a statement posted on the committee’s web site.
In response to a phone inquiry of what this means and whether the case had been reopened, a spokeswoman refused to comment and hung up.
A few hours later, the committee posted a statement on the web site saying Bastrykin had reopened the case.
Environmentalists, whose efforts helped prompt investigators to open a criminal case in the first place, criticized Bastrykin’s explanation to Altai lawmakers that the surviving passengers were not part of the hunt. “Kosopkin and Bannykh were the two most highly placed officials on the helicopter, and the hunt never would have happened if they had opposed pursuing the animals,” said Alexei Vaisman, a researcher with the World Wildlife Fund.
But reopening the case at the height of a public outcry smacks of a public relations stunt, said security analyst Andrei Soldatov. “They are likely to close the case again when the situation quiets down again, like they did after reopening the case of Shchekochikhin,”
Soldatov said, referring to the mysterious death of Novaya Gazeta reporter and State Duma Deputy Yury Shchekochikhin in 2003.
Alexei Gribkov, an environmentalist from Barnaul in the neighboring Altai region, said a thorough investigation was unlikely because it would probably “unravel many nasty details implicating people from beyond the region, like Kosopkin’s superiors.”
He said it was still not clear who had financed the hunt in the Gazpromavia-owned helicopter. “For us, it is very important to set a precedent with this … hunt because it was certainly not the first incident,” he said by telephone.
Berdnikov, whose term expires in January, flew to Moscow on Wednesday to attend President Dmitry Medvedev’s state-of-the nation address Thursday. He was unavailable for comment, said a woman who answered the phone at Altai’s representative office in Moscow.
One snow leopard a year lost to poaching
14 June, 2009 – At least one snow leopard has been killed by poachers every year since the enactment in 1995 of the forest, nature and conservation Act, which prohibits the killing of endangered wild animals in the country.
Records until 2007 with the nature conservation department (NCD) show that 193 wild animals were poached between 1992-2007. These include 15 snow leopards, five tigers, 61 musk deer, a porcupine and a python.
NCD officials said that, although tigers and snow leopards are endangered species, poaching and illegal trade poses a threat to these animals, even in protected areas. The high commercial value of certain species attracts poachers, according to conservation officials. Prominent species poached for commercial trade include tiger, musk deer, black bear and Chinese caterpillar (Cordyceps sinensis).
“Poachers mostly use guns and arrows or set traps, which have even snared humans and domestic animals,” said NCD’s chief forestry officer, Dr Sonam Wangyel Wang.
To protect these big cats, WWF and local wildlife authorities are working together to establish anti-poaching units and strengthen anti-poaching law enforcement. In addition to poaching, WWF and its partners are addressing human-wildlife conflict, by setting up a compensation fund for local farmers, whose livestock is often killed by tigers and leopards.
Around 26 percent of Bhutan’s land is under protected area, but poaching is encouraged by demand from other countries. Tigers are particularly threatened as its parts are used in many traditional East Asian medicinal disciplines. “There also exists a commercial demand for non-medicinal parts of the tiger, most notably the skin, teeth and claws,” said Dr Wang. “Besides poaching, human/wildlife conflicts also result in the killing of wild animals.”
Officials say that the protected areas do not have adequate human resources for enforcement, making it difficult to implement an effective anti-poaching strategy. Data, regarding the degree of poaching and killing, is also generally inadequate.
“If law enforcement isn’t strengthened and strict measures put in place to curb poaching, Bhutan may lose valuable species of wildlife within a short period of time,” he said, adding that officials in the field must be equipped well to combat poaching.
By Nima Wangdi
http://www.kuenselonline.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=12729
Camping in Kabul, April 2009
Photographs & Text By Michael Obert
Translated by Jason Nickels
An excerpt from the article that mentions availability of snow leopard fur coats:
Chicken Street, in downtown
Protecting God’s Cats in Nepal: Livestock Insurance Scheme in the Himalayas has helped save the endangered snow leopards
Sanjib K. Chaudhary (sanjib)
The snow leopards weigh between 27 and 54 kilograms, their body length ranges between 0.74 and 1.30 metres with a tail nearly the same length. They possess thick fur, which is pale with dark-gray to black spots. This aids in hunting by helping to camouflage the cat against the rocky slopes. Its large, broad paws act like snowshoes. The snow leopard even has a built-in scarf; its long, bushy tail that it often wraps around its body and face for added warmth when resting. This same tail helps the cat keep its balance as it leaps among rocky outcrops and narrow ledges after its agile prey. Its powerfully built, barrel-shaped chest gives it the strength to climb the steep slopes. Its long, muscular hind legs enable it to leap up to 10 metres — nearly six times its body length — in pursuit of prey.
Poaching for Pelt and Bones
The snow leopards are poached for their valuable fur and bones used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). As the demand for Asian big cat bones increases, TCM producers turn to other large cats such as the clouded leopard and snow leopard as substitutes for the tiger bones. The bone trade is rapidly replacing fur trade. Herders living along
As the natural prey base depletes, the snow leopards attack livestock and fall victim to retaliatory killing. “Loss of prey mainly occurs due to poaching of prey species like musk deer and Himalayan tahr or due to the competition for grazing grounds between livestock and prey species,” says Kamal Thapa, Research Officer with WWF. “Snow leopards get killed in retaliation by the herders when they attack livestock during times when their natural prey is scarce.”
Human-snow leopard conflicts often increase in the winter, as the cats follow the herds of Himalayan blue sheep down to lower altitudes. Food is scarce, and hungry snow leopards occasionally kill and eat domestic livestock. In an incident, a snow leopard killed 100 sheep and goats in its single attack in the
Despite the human-snow leopard conflict, people are now conscious that snow leopards are endangered and they should be saved. The herd owners have set up a common fund which is administered and managed by the Snow Leopard Conservation Committee — made up of members of the local community. This committee is responsible for monitoring livestock depredation trends, fundraising, verifying claims, and deciding on the appropriate compensation, raising awareness on snow leopards conservation and monitoring prey population. This is very much a scheme for the herders by the herders.
The Livestock Insurance Scheme has proved to be one of the important tools to reduce conflicts between snow leopards and humans. When herders are compensated financially for occasional losses of their cattle they are less likely to kill snow leopards in retaliation as they no longer have to fear financial ruin. This scheme has been used in
A Good Future Ahead
There are 350 to 500 snow leopards in the wild in
WWF Russia released a report on attitudes toward hunting and poaching in the Altai-Sayan region
WWF Russia released a report in English by Agnieszka Halemba and Brian Donahoe of the University of Leipzig and Max Planck Institute respectively on attitudes toward hunting and poaching in the Altai-Sayan region, including some material on attitude toward hunting of snow leopard. The report can be downloaded at http://www.wwf.ru/altay/eng/. The Altai press also reports that Kazakhstan and Russia are planning for a transboundary reserve in the Altai region and that a 2008 conference took place in Kazakhstan on the project. Additionally, WWF Russia is planning to initiate ecotours into snow leopard habitat along the Argut River. (Altaipress.ru Feb 13, 2009)
Thanks to SLN member Kathleen Braden for this update.
KaraFilm festival: Informative, thought-provoking films mark third day
Saturday, February 07, 2009
By our correspondent
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=161144
Karachi
The third day of the Kara Film Festival saw a flurry of activity with a screening of 11 films, seven short ones, two documentaries, and two feature films.
Within the short films section was the 48-minute local film, “Gurmukh Singh ki Wasiyat” (Gurmukh Sigh’s Will). Based on a short story by Saadat Hasan Minto, written and directed by Sharjeel Baloch, the story is set in
The film is centred around the family of a retired Muslim judge, Mian Saheb. Muslim families of the area migrate to
While Gurmukh Singh’s son honours his father’s will to bring sweet vermicelli on Eid to the Muslim household, he remains powerless to prevent his peers from burning and looting.
Afterwards, Sharjeel thanked his crew and the actors who put in a lot of effort, shooting the film within five days at Kotri. He was thankful to the people of Kotri who welcomed the crew warmly in to their homes, many of which last from the pre-Partition era, thus giving an air of authenticity to the scenes and bringing alive the past.
The second documentary, a BBC production for their Planet Earth series, was about snow leopards in Chitral, NWFP. The unique aspect of this production is the visual documentation of the behaviour of the snow leopards on the steep mountains. Narrated by renowned wildlife documentary maker, Sir David Attenborough, the celestial beauty of snow-decked valleys, and the engaging delivery of Sir Attenborough drew the audience’s rapt attention.
Nisar Malik, veteran journalist and filmmaker, who was commissioned to seek out and film the rare beast, was also present at Friday’s screening. He said that within four years of shooting, they saw only four snow leopards.
Responding to a question about whether the documentary might further endanger the animal for hunters and poachers, Malik said that during their four years, they exposed numerous instances of trophy poaching and illegal hunting in the land of the Markhor. The authorities, however, turned a blind eye, he said.
Unfortunately, the only way Pakistanis will be able to see the documentary is either on BBC or on the Indian Discovery channel in Hindi, as none of the channels in
Poaching by Helicopter a Popular Pastime
23 January 2009
By Anna Malpas / Staff Writer Moscow Times
When a helicopter carrying senior government officials crashed into a
remote Altai mountainside earlier this month, killing several
passengers, the accident appeared to be nothing more than a tragic
loss of life.
But photographs snapped at the crash site have thrown a spotlight on
what conservationists say is a disturbingly popular pastime among the
country’s political and business elite: the expensive sport of
poaching from helicopters.
One photograph published on an Altai region web site shows the
carcasses of endangered argali sheep among the wreckage of the Mi-171
helicopter that crashed Jan. 9. One of the sheep has a knife sticking
out of its haunches.
The wild sheep is one of
punishable by up to two years in prison. The photograph prompted
ecologists to press prosecutors to investigate whether the officials
were hunting illegally when their helicopter went down.
Among the seven federal, regional and local officials killed in the
crash was Viktor Kaimin, the Altai republic’s top official charged
with protecting the region’s wildlife and whose committee was
responsible for issuing hunting licenses.
Regional prosecutors say no formal investigation has been opened into
whether the officials were engaging in illegal hunting, though
regional environmental officials said they would push for a probe
into the circumstances of the incident, which some ecologists and
political commentators have dubbed “Altaigate.”
Conservationists say it is an open secret that officials come to
Altai for hunting trips in which they simply shoot at animals from
hovering helicopters, despite a ban on the practice.
With its remote mountains, the pristine Gorny Altai region is popular
with hunters, and hunting is legal in some areas for Siberian goat
and
“Over the last decade, Altai has become a place where helicopter
hunting has become rather common,” said Alexei Vaisman, head of WWF-
Russia’s anti-animal trafficking program.
The officials in the fatal expedition had hunting licences for
Siberian goats and
Altai government, told Interfax. The photographs published on the
AltaPress.ru web site, however, clearly show animals with round
curved horns, while Siberian goats have tall, slightly curved horns.
Vaisman, whose organization has been joined by Greenpeace and other
environmental groups in calling for an investigation, said WWF-Russia
does not “want anyone’s blood.”
“We don’t want anyone to be imprisoned,” Vaisman said. “The main aim
of our actions is to make a court give an official legal assessment
of what happened.”
Also killed in the crash were Alexander Kosopkin, the Kremlin’s envoy
to the State Duma, and Sergei Livishin, a senior member of the
presidential administration.
Survivors included Anatoly Bannykh, deputy head of the
Duma’s Economic Policy Committee.
Gorny Altai attracts “VIP hunters,” said Oleg Mitvol, the outspoken
deputy head of Federal Inspection Service for Natural Resources Use.
“There are special lodges that can only be reached by helicopter,”
Mitvol said. “They are luxurious. Just imagine how much it costs to
stay there.”
Environmentalists say helicopter hunting trips cannot be organized
without the knowledge and support of local officials.
It’s “rather common” for regional officials to treat federal
officials to free hunting trips, Vaisman said. “It’s not a bribe,
it’s to make good relations, to get additional money to the region
from the federal center,” he said.
Low-level officials are often involved in organizing the trips too.
State game wardens receive “almost negligible” salaries of around
1,000 rubles ($32) per month, Vaisman said.
Such helicopter hunting trips are organized in Kamchatka, Magadan,
level officials and so-called New Russians, who think they are above
the law,” he said.
The targets can be mountain sheep, snow sheep, mountain goats, bears
or moose, Vaisman said. “They shoot directly from the helicopter and
then land to pick up any trophies,” he said.
Kobzeva, the
Moscow Times by telephone that the officials who crashed earlier this
month were on a private trip and that no funds from the regional
budget were used to finance it. The administration has no information
on who ordered and paid for the trip, Kobzeva said.
Helicopter hunting trips even take place in nature reserves, said
Mikhail Paltsyn, a scientist with a UN-sponsored environmental
program called Biodiversity Conservation in the Russian Portion of
the Altai-Sayan Ecoregion.
“Helicopter hunts take place regularly for Siberian goats and
deer
hunting is completely banned,” Paltsyn said in e-mailed comments. “On
practically all our expeditions to the
hunting helicopters and find traces of such hunting. Local residents
say that helicopters with hunters come to these places every month.”
Last February, conservationists spotted a helicopter on two
consecutive days circling and apparently firing at Siberian goats and
police. “The people responsible were never found,” Paltsyn said. “It
looks like the servants of the people were hunting again.”
Hiring a helicopter costs tens of thousands of rubles per hour, said
Anatoly Mozharov, the editor of Safari magazine for hunters. Mozharov
stressed, however, that legitimate hunters use helicopters to fly to
far-flung areas and then hunt from the ground.
Killing a protected animal is a crime in
two years. Relatively few poachers are ever convicted, however,
officials and environmentalists said.
“Very few investigations are ever opened regarding ecological
crimes,” Mitvol said. “Last year, practically none were opened.
Unfortunately, many VIP hunters take into account that no criminal
investigation will ever be opened against them.”
A spokeswoman for the Prosecutor General’s Office said the office had
no available data on the number of illegal hunting cases investigated
last year or the number of people convicted of poaching.
Convictions are rare in such cases because illegal hunting is “very,
very difficult to prove,” said Alexander Bondarev, head of the
Biodiversity Conservation in the Russian Portion of the Altai-Sayan
Ecoregion.
“Some people see a helicopter in the mountains, but it’s not possible
to determine which animal was shot,” he said.
In Gorny Altai, hunters often receive permission to shoot Siberian
goats — whose territory is close to that of the endangered argali
sheep, Bondarev said. The hunters can therefore claim that they are
shooting at the goats, not the wild sheep.
“The only possibility is to find the hunter near the animal,”
Bondarev said. “But it’s very difficult to prove that he killed this
animal.”
Bondarev’s organization was one of the first to issue a statement
identifying the animals in the photograph as argali sheep. The
organization focuses on the conservation of argali and the snow
leopard, both of which are listed as endangered in
The argali sheep is one of the region’s rarest species, and its
population in
The argali are the largest wild sheep in the world. Their large,
curly horns, weighing around 50 kilograms, are prized as trophies.
The area where the helicopter crashed is home to the largest group of
argali sheep in
could be 100-150, while in summer they number up to 400, Paltsyn said.
“The greatest threat for argali is poaching, including hunting by
some local residents and hunting for pleasure and trophies by
visiting hunters,” Paltsyn said.
It is unclear how many argali are killed illegally each year in
are poached annually.
Kaimin, the environmental official killed in the crash, was embroiled
in a scandal in 2003 after he was purportedly seen hunting argali
sheep.
investigate the incident, though the case was later dropped.
A spokesman for the Altai newspaper that reported on the story,
Postskriptum, said in a telephone interview that the case was dropped
because it rested exclusively on statements from witnesses.
Attempts to reach the
use and reproduction of the animal world — which Kaimin headed up
before his death — were unsuccessful. The committee had only five
members, of whom only one was an inspector, Paltsyn said. Until
recently, it had no transport, funds for raids or inspector team, he
said.
“If the fact of poaching is confirmed, then of course this
organization is just ineffective,” said Svetlana Shchegrina, head of
environmental education at the Altai regional nature reserve, which
also has a population of argali sheep. “It’s a terrible case.”