Russia Closes Hunting Season until Further Notice
Not only has the Spring Brown Bear hunt been closed in the southern province of Kamchatka, but SCI has just been notified that all hunting throughout Russia has been closed until further notice. This news comes to us directly from our Asian Program Coordinator, Dr. Andrey Subbotin, who resides in Moscow. It appears that there is a struggle brewing between the government agencies. The hunting season has typically been opened and scheduled by the Ministry of Agriculture, but now the Federal Prosecutor’s Office is demanding that the opening of the hunting season go through Federal Ecological Expertise, which is a branch of the Ministry of Environment. It has been estimated that nearly 1,000 Americans and four to five hundred Europeans travel to Kamchatka each year for hunting, generally for brown bear. At this time, Dr. Subbotin is in the process of speaking with many of the regional and federal hunting administrators. Their general consensus is that th e antis present a danger as they seem to have an influence on the government. SCI will continue to report on this situation as more details become available.