What are the problems and concerns of hunting today?
Currently, a number of laws relating to the hunting industry have been adopted, but they are not very successful.
They say hunting is bad due to these laws?
Laws relating to hunting can be viewed from different angles. Most citizens are happy, since the laws imply becoming a hunter without investment (free if there is no criminal record) and then, without much red tape, obtaining permission to buy a gun, purchasing a ticket for 400 rubles to a public hunting ground. A minority of citizens, having (of their own free will) done what the majority does, additionally joins the community of hunters, adding the worry of paying membership fees and working on obtaining vouchers at prices set by the hunting user.
So this is a clear inequality.
Only the inequality is not in additional investments (labor, money), but in consciousness and care for hunting resources. For the most part, citizens find it beneficial and calm to be a hunter, while the other one needs the rigmarole with all the worries about the hunting area.
They say there are fewer members of society?
This is a natural process, a person searches for where everything is easier.
But how to stop this process?
The Russian Hunting and Fishing Union made a number of proposals to the government to strengthen the hunting industry. In terms of reducing the one-time fee for a long-term hunting agreement, giving rangers the right to draw up protocols, the right to learn the hunting minimum when joining hunters, the participation of the public union of hunters in matters to protect hunting and fishing resources. At the same time, the hunter has the right to choose where to take part in hunting: on the farm of the hunting user or on public hunting grounds.
You are the record holder for the longest work experience in the hunting society. In your opinion, today which form of farming is winning and which is losing?
I would name three main forms of hunting management:
1) Public form of hunting management;
2) Private form of hunting management;
3) State form of management (public) hunting management.
But there are a number of problems with each of these forms. The social form of hunting management is strong in its mass, but weak economically.
The private form is economically strong, but weak in that it covers a narrow circle of hunters.
The state form of hunting management is abandoned by the state for survival and is strong only in the regulatory framework.
I have recently met a lot with scientists, leaders of republican and regional societies, heads of enterprises, entrepreneurs, those people who love hunting and support its prosperity. There is only one conclusion - it is necessary to connect hunters' societies (their farms) with private capital through mutually beneficial agreements.
Are there any results already on this proposal?
The result is far from achieved, but the first such agreement was concluded between the debugging society and an individual entrepreneur.
Secret, with whom exactly?
There is no secret. This is IP Ablov N.K. Our fellow countryman is a resident of the Kamyzyaksky district, a successful entrepreneur, a prudent owner, a district deputy, a lover of hunting and fishing.
What is the essence of the agreement?
The regional society has a license and enters into a hunting agreement for hunting grounds with the regional administration, and the individual entrepreneur makes a one-time payment (at the rate of 10 rubles per 1 hectare) and is burdened with a contract for 49 years of conducting economic activities in these hunting grounds. The regional society and the individual entrepreneur are mutually responsible for the management of the hunting enterprise. The hunter is not disadvantaged in the hunting grounds, and the individual entrepreneur has the opportunity to create an area with the services of a huntsman at a special fee. But I personally don’t really want anyone to sell cartridges, etc. in this area. So we get services at all levels of the economy.
What are the benefits for an entrepreneur?
The entrepreneur has an increased opportunity to expand hunting and fishing services, and his status increases. The truth is there are more worries.
And yet, what’s wrong with us in the hunting industry?
In general, these are imperfect laws and, if they exist, there are huge problems in them. For example, Kazakhstan adopted a law regarding hunting, but defined the role of public hunting organizations and allowed the issuance of a single hunting ticket. In Belarus, rangers have received high security status and state support. Many countries have given serious priority to farmers who want to protect hunting and fishing resources. It has long been clear to everyone that hunting in itself does not bring profit.
And what did you come to?
In the Orenburg region, 97% of hunters dropped out of society. A deplorable picture in Kalmykia and Dagestan. There are almost no hunting grounds in the Stavropol region, and in general, who benefits from this decline is a mystery to me and to other hunting users.
In the Astrakhan region there is a real mess in matters of movement and recreation in the Volga delta, that is, there is no peace for hunting and fishing resources. True, the regional leadership has adopted a number of promising projects - this is a natural park in the north of the region and earlier - orders on wetlands of international rank. The latter is not working, and the park has just started operating. If the management of the park and the district communities (Akhtubinskoye, Chernoyarskoye, Enotaevskoye) jointly take care of the safety of hunting and fishing resources, of course, there will be results.
Do you think the Astrakhan hunting society will not fall apart like in Orenburg?
No. Although at the beginning my colleagues, the heads of hunting farms, did not immediately support me on the issue of merging business and society, but now the previously accepted contractual terms are mutually beneficial and are taken as a basis.
Maybe there is some other hidden reserve for improving hunting and fishing activities and the preservation and reproduction of hunting and fishing resources?
Yes, of course there is, not just a reserve. Powerful economic structure. The tourist league, headed by V.A. Popov.
How do you see collaboration for the benefit of nature?
The society has had mutual relations with travel agencies on services, biotechnology, and reproduction of hunting resources for many years. Some travel agencies are an example of the prudent use of hunting and fishing resources.
And more specifically?
The hunting society enters into agreements with travel agencies to create sites with the services of a ranger. These areas are heavily guarded and the area is sold out. Young ducks and pheasants are produced. The rest zone is much higher than in other places of the hunting grounds. Naturally there is a lot of game, and hunting is better.
This experience needs to be expanded. But some heads of hunting enterprises are opponents of such areas and are jealous of decisions about contracts with travel agencies, which, I think, is a big mistake.
It turns out that you are not opposed to working together for the benefit of nature with travel agencies?
I believe that the travel agency is directly interested in improving such an indicator as the hunter’s prey, but it has recently worsened.
There are many travel agencies, but one territory.
There is a territorial carrying capacity of the hunting area (in our natural conditions, approximately 60 hectares per hunter). Actual - the amount of game to be harvested. The territory is sufficient for both our own and visitors, but the actual throughput suffers.
The regional community is the main hunting user. Doesn't it have a lot of territory?
So what's the matter?
We need the political will of our leadership to create a team that will determine the strategy of what we are talking about.
08/08/2011 | The future could belong to collective hunting farms... But it doesn’t exist
Miroslav Madejski, General Director of Diana Hunting Club LLC, at the presentation of the feed and additives he produces. Photo - Andrey Shalygin
Miroslav Madejski: “What prompted me to write my opinion was an interview with Anton Bersenev. The battle over a unified state hunting license has finally ended. It’s amazing that our huge country has been discussing one document that concerns all of us, hunters, for so many years. It was discussed for another year then: will the officials have time to cope with the preparations for issuing tickets, and it seems that for another year everyone will be dealing with the question: will they be able to issue tickets to everyone within a year or not?!
This ticket is actually only a confirmation that the person, by registering, has joined the ranks of hunters.
The rank of such a ticket is zero, considering that no knowledge is required to obtain it. Most likely, hunting officials couldn't come up with anything smarter than either making the hunting societies work or putting them out of business after they stopped having money flowing in for the tribute paid to be a hunter. In fact, it is unlikely that it will now be possible to sit idle indefinitely. Most likely, all their actions were aimed at accelerating the collapse of the existing post-Soviet system of societies. The prevailing bureaucratic scheme of confiscating land from companies for any reason (violation) has extended the privatization process for a long time. And how can a society not violate the requirements in such circumstances, when officials only need to cut the number of permits for the extraction of ungulates, and the society will have no revenue?! There will be no sale - there will be nothing to fulfill the biotechnical requirements for. And as a consequence: local hunters will have no incentive to work for society. Now it’s clear why the hunting industry in the country has been brought to such a deplorable state! And the question arises: why was it necessary to destroy everything in order to now build it anew?!
If the improvement of legislation moves in the same direction, then in the future “ticket holders” will go into the forest just to drink vodka.
The owners of private hunting grounds, which at one time were so attacked by all the magazines that the oligarchs would take the land, knock out everything that moved there and abandon it, have proven the opposite. It’s great that the head of the department is a supporter of the private owner of the land. However, in my opinion, you shouldn't overdo it. Why not create conditions for the existence of all types of property or economic activity? In private hunting enterprises there is also an indefinable problem: how to reduce costs? People will work for the owner only for money. There is a problem with qualified and responsible labor in villages. The owners were never able to find a common language with local hunters. The confrontation became poaching and theft. And it seemed that it was so easy to come to an agreement with local hunters, to create brigades that would serve on a voluntary basis as rangers for the right to hunt in these areas. The psychological barrier between the poor and the rich is still very large.
The future could also belong to collective hunting farms, when, for example, a district society that does not know how to stay afloat on its own would have a sponsor or a group of sponsors as new solvent members of society who would receive additional rights of influence in exchange for material and technical support. Local hunters would carry out ongoing biotechnical and security work in their free time from their main work, and visitors would take care of feed, equipment and equipment. It could be fun for local hunters to cater to out-of-town commercial hunts. And such societies could operate at minimal costs. But there is one BUT... These societies must become independent legal entities and have the right to decide everything for themselves. And most importantly: to have the right to dispose of animals raised at the expense of one’s own labor and invested financial resources. In some European countries, this system of interaction between local and urban hunters works great, especially if they have a major sponsor. The system works flawlessly, because some cannot do without others.
Russian Hunting Trophy Records. Photo - Andrey Shalygin.
Now societies are being trampled on both sides. Officials from the “hunting supervision” act in a win-win manner: while the society is working, they keep part of the shooting permits for themselves, selling them, and as soon as the hunting industry falls into decay, then kickback for the registration of a hunting agreement to some moneybag opens up the way for them to solve larger problems, leading to The result is that the regularly collected tribute for the production quota can forever warm their pockets. Until the state resolves this issue by passing an appropriate law, nothing will move forward. The same should apply to private farms. The fashion of having your own hunting ground will soon pass, because any toy gets boring over time, and in this case it also creates too many problems for the owner, and, being a very expensive undertaking, hits hard on the pocket. Privatization has not yet ended, but there are already so many proposals for the sale of land!
This means that the sponsorship model of hunting management will be relevant, since only a few will be able to afford to pay all the costs associated with hunting management.
In my opinion, an increase in the number of state inspectors for security is nothing more than an increase in legal poachers. If the land has an owner, he will independently decide how to protect it. It is important that law enforcement agencies work reliably to protect citizen property rights.
A separate topic: commercial hunting. It must be not only profitable, but also profitable. There is still little knowledge in the country about how to run such a farm. Such an economy is close to a farmer's. It is necessary to learn how to attract animals, keep them in the grounds, feed or supplement them in order to increase immunity, increase the fertility of females, as well as the percentage of young adults raised and the number of individuals surviving the winter, increase the rate of weight gain and, finally, improve the quality of trophies. It is also impossible to do without developing selection skills. Predator reduction needs to be made profitable, not expendable. In my opinion, increasing the premium for wolf hunting will not help much. Whatever one may say, this is just another opportunity for a corrupt agreement.
I know what I'm saying. We launched the production and sale of fertilizers, feeds and licks for almost all types of game animals. Separate mineral and vitamin compositions have been developed for all types of game animals. And what we hear everywhere in response: “We have everything, because we purchased so and so many tons of grain and salt.” There are no analogues of such an integrated approach to feeding wild animals in the world. In the United States, for example, an abundance of animals exists thanks to the use of food laid out specifically for animals, although most of the food used is expired food intended for people. We have developed an innovative system of balanced feeding in addition to natural food, which is more than enough in the vast expanses of Russia. We also had to take into account the fact that throughout the central, eastern and northern parts of Russia, agriculture is dying, villages are disappearing, because they have become uncompetitive in relation to the southern regions of Russia, as well as to foreign food producers. Russia can be fed by three or four southern regions of the Russian Federation, if, of course, modern agricultural technology works. After all, wild animals were fed on agricultural fields with plants with a rich composition of microelements supplied to them from the soil as a result of the use of fertilizers. For animals, all this is too poor food. In such circumstances, it is in Russia that hunting as an industry, from an economic point of view, can become competitive with agriculture. Only in Russia, wild animals are not a pest in areas where there is almost no agriculture. To grow 1 kg of wild animal meat you need no more than 30% of the feed supplied with human participation, which does not require the cost of a huge infrastructure, as is the case with farms in agriculture.
“Hunting is an expensive and problematic hobby,” says a source close to the co-owner of Rossiya Bank, Nikolai Shamalov, whose fortune Forbes estimates at $500 million. The businessman and his three partners annually invest several million in the hunting grounds they own in the Priozersky district of the Leningrad region rubles The President of Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin and his partners and the children of the Governor of the Leningrad Region Valery Serdyukov, banker Petr Aven, and owner of NLMK Vladimir Lisin spend the same amount on maintaining their lands in the neighborhood. And also officials, deputies and businessmen who directly or through structures close to them rent hunting grounds in five regions located near Moscow and St. Petersburg.
How they divided it
Just 10 years ago, almost all hunting grounds were public - in the sense that they were registered as hunting societies. But then everything changed. “The Muscovites came and hunted. They liked our places and said that they wanted to take the site,” recalls an employee of one regional hunters’ society. “We submitted an application, won the competition and received a license for the area we wanted,” says a Moscow businessman, one of the largest tenants of hunting grounds in the North-West, reluctantly.
To obtain a license, it was enough to submit an application and win in a non-monetary “competition of intentions”: the winner was the one who promised to invest more in the land. Who should be awarded the victory was decided by the competition commission, consisting mostly of local officials. “Naturally, we saw who the regional administration officials supported,” recalls a Tver hunter who participated in such competitions.
How this happened can be judged by the story of the chairman of the board of the Yaroslavl regional hunting society, Anatoly Durandin (the transcript is on the society’s website): “Endless checks began, in the office of the Rostov branch in the summer of 2006, grenades were first found, later in the house of the chairman of this society - live ammunition<…>And an employee of the Poshekhonsky Prosecutor’s Office went to the office of the Poshekhonsky Hunting Society for more than a year as if going to work - in the morning he came before the company’s employees and waited for the door to open.” Yaroslavl hunters eventually abandoned 600,000 hectares, which were put up for open competitions (although they still have 2 million hectares left).
Military hunters of the Leningrad region have lost a lot, states Sergei Bolshikhin, assistant to the head of the “Zapasnoye” hunting base in the Priozersky district of the Leningrad region. “We basically only have bases left, and we no longer have our own lands,” he says.
“In 2001, the Bezhetsk District Society of Hunters and Fishers received 143,700 hectares in the Tver region for 10 years, and all this time, plots are constantly being cut off from us,” complains the chairman of the society, Nikolai Filipovich. According to him, attempts to take away land from refugee hunters are made once every two years - the governor cancels his decree, the Tver hunting department revokes the license, and the society restores its right to hunt in court.
In the interval between the trials, refugee hunters almost lost 35,800 hectares - the plot was put up for competition in 2005, and it passed to the Dubakinskoye company of the then vice-president of Lukoil, Alexei Smirnov. The society managed to protest this competition in court. Until 2000, Dubakinskoye itself belonged to the Military Hunting Society of the Moscow Military District, and then, together with the Tver lands, it went to Lukoil. The press service of Lukoil told Vedomosti that this was a personal project of Smirnov, a native of Bezhetsk. “When Dubakinskoye was owned by the military society, it was a sad, ruined enterprise,” said Smirnov. “I had a helicopter, and when we flew around the farm and counted how many moose there were, there were only 16 of them. Now there are more than 500 moose in Dubakinsky.” The former top manager of Lukoil is convinced that the state and public organizations have shown themselves to be ineffective owners.
On April 1, 2010, the hunting law came into force, which was supposed to change the rules of the game: land is now awarded at open auctions for real money. But most of the tenants prepared for this in advance - they won competitions that assigned the land to them for 49 years. For example, in the Tver region, the then governor Dmitry Zelenin signed 16 orders on March 30, 2010 on the provision of forest areas with a total area of 220,085 hectares “for the use of wildlife in the form of hunting” for 49 years. The companies won this right in open competitions held shortly before. A week before, on March 22, 2010, Zelenin signed 15 orders to provide 205,514 hectares. Similar competitions on the eve of the entry into force of the new law were held in Leningrad, Pskov, Yaroslavl and other regions. In fact, tenants staked out plots in this way for almost a century - the same law provides that they will then receive another 49 years by preemptive right, without an auction.
Hunting is not a business
It is almost impossible to make money on a hunting farm, insist all the land users interviewed by Vedomosti. “Hunting farms don’t pay off in Russia, because this is not Africa and we don’t have hippos. We only have wild boars, moose and very few bears,” says Moscow entrepreneur Vladimir Tovmasyan, whose Vologda Hunting company is the largest private tenant of Vologda lands (218,000 hectares). According to Tovmasyan, the economy of the hunting farm is simple: the huntsman’s salary is 7,000 rubles. per month, and a voucher for wild boar hunting can be sold for 8,000 rubles. “Vologda Hunting” receives a hunting limit of 12 wild boars per season, i.e., the money received from the sale of all wild boar vouchers can pay the salary of one huntsman. And there are several of them, plus hunting farms must purchase grain to feed animals, build towers, and maintain equipment.
The hunting farm buys a license to hunt elk from the state for about 3,000 rubles, and a wild boar for 750 rubles, says Yuri Poluiko, chairman of the board of the Tver “Eger” (600,000 hectares on lease). In private hunting grounds, a trip to an elk will cost 30,000 rubles. plus 3000 rub. per day for accommodation and food. The difference goes to cover the costs of feeding animals, maintaining huntsmen and game wardens, and equipment. But the money from the vouchers is not enough. In “Eger” they were able to earn only 5 million rubles from vouchers in 2010. with expenses of 200 million rubles, says Poluiko.
Hunting farms are kept not for business, but for recreation. That's why they try not to let strangers here. “We tried to sell tours, but it didn’t suit us morally. You come to your farm - and there are strangers who have bought vouchers. There were excesses, drunks while hunting. Therefore, now we keep the hunting farm only for ourselves and our friends from the shooting club,” says Sergei Ivankin, co-owner of the Kudeversky hunting farm in the Pskov region.
“Ordinary hunters are not allowed there [to Shamalov’s lands]. We have wealthy people who are willing to pay for wild boar and elk hunting, but they do not sell vouchers. They keep quotas for themselves,” says Bolshikhin. “There are publicly accessible lands for them (according to the law, 20% of the lands in the region must be accessible to everyone. - Vedomosti),” explains Shamalov. In the Melnikovsky Society (Yakunin and his partners hunt here) you can buy a ticket for a duck, but it costs much more than from the Military Hunting Society of St. Petersburg, adds Bolshikhin.
At Rumelko-sporting, Lisin’s Tver hunting estate, everyone is allowed to hunt a hare or duck, says company director Eduard Kulishkin. But the club does not sell vouchers for elk and wild boar.
Bezhetsk hunters can theoretically hunt ducks and geese in Dubakinsky. “But there the cost of one dawn is 10,000 rubles. We don’t have such salaries,” Filipovich is outraged. The owner of “Dubakinsky” Smirnov, however, assures that benefits have been established for refugee hunters.
Relaxing with your own people often benefits business. “Hunting is a way of informal communication with the right people,” this is how the top manager of a Moscow food holding formulates this idea. In 2008, he and his partner leased more than 30,000 hectares of land in the Tver region. “In the world, hunting has always been a meeting place for friends and colleagues, where various problems can be discussed in an informal setting. Only in Russia for some reason they view this negatively and consider it corruption,” agrees one of the owners of the hunting farm. “But this is not a classic hunt, but something else. I was in “Zavidovo” once, I won’t go there again. I’d rather hunt in Belarus,” says the owner of a large grain company.
The problems we identified in hunting tourism in the Astrakhan region can be conditionally divided into four large groups: economic, ecological-biological, organizational-cultural and legislative. There are also problems that can be considered in the context of several groups.
The group of economic problems of hunting tourism includes problems associated with the financial support of both the entire industry as a whole and its individual components.
In this group of problems in our region, the following components can be distinguished:
Weak financial support for hunting farms from the region and the federation as a whole. This contributes to the slow pace of development of hunting infrastructure. Thus, most hunting grounds simply do not have accommodation facilities. All this reduces the competitiveness of these structures in the tourism services market. In addition, this problem is one of the constituent reasons for the emergence of the so-called seasonality of hunting tourism.
The problem of the presence of a seasonality factor (Figure 2). The absence of a year-round season for receiving tourists plays a big role in the financial influx of tourist bases, which in the region are the only structures offering hunting tourism services. It should be noted that most tourist centers in the Astrakhan region are closed in winter for so-called technical training for the next year. The main reason for the complete closure of such tourist centers is the underdevelopment of their infrastructure: initially, during construction, the houses were not designed for the cold season, they do not have a heating system. This is not surprising, since they are designed for the “mass” client, which determines (for the most part) such development of the infrastructure of the fishing and hunting cluster. During the cold season of the year, the attractiveness of our region for tourists is significantly reduced, so financing the development of infrastructure for the winter period is considered unprofitable.
At present, unfortunately, we have to admit that the majority of hunting farms do not have a separate item in their expenses for the creation and further maintenance of areas for artificial reproduction of game on their territory. As a rule, minimal funds are allocated to solve the problem of restoring the number of game animals, but the throughput of hunting farms directly depends on the increase in the number of, for example, game birds.
A group of ecological and biological problems addresses the state of the flora and fauna of the Astrakhan region, as well as the biocenosis of the region as a whole. In addition, they address the problems of anthropogenic impact on the nature of hunting farms, as well as various environmental aspects:
The problem of reducing the number of hunting resources. This may be due to a fairly large number of factors: climate change, low water in the ilmen, and food supply. For example, due to a lack of water, the food supply of fish and, as a result, certain species of birds suffers. All this leads to a reduction in the number of migratory birds (the main resource for hunting tourism in the region) and a decrease in the number of nesting sites. Of course, it is impossible to somehow influence natural instability, but it is necessary to artificially maintain or improve the food supply of such animal species on each hunting farm. To solve this problem, hunting farms need to actively work together with ecologists in the region. It is even possible to create some kind of dams in which the required level and circulation of water will be maintained. Of course, all this will also come down to finances, since no one will carry out such serious events on “naked” enthusiasm.
Reporting on losses in numbers of various species is also important for understanding the processes occurring in the biocenoses of game farms. We have to admit the fact that the annual report on the number of game is carried out with large errors due to the negligent attitude of hunters to their duties, and sometimes this report contains not only inaccurate, but even far-fetched information. Moreover, according to Russian legislation, at the end of the hunt, any hunter must return the form “permission to extract hunting resources” to the organization from which he purchased it, with notes on the amount of resources he extracted. It is on the basis of all such submitted forms that an approximate count of the game shot is made, the difference is calculated, and based on the difference of each species, a forecast is made, and appropriate biotechnical measures are developed and carried out. Unfortunately, many hunting grounds note that hunters often neglect hunting rules and consider it the norm to not submit permits on time, to submit permits without marks, or even not to submit permits at all.
Currently, the problem of increasing the number of so-called “harmful” animals, such as the wolf, jackal, fox, and mink, is very acute. It should be noted that this problem is complex, since it can result in both economic losses and significant changes in the ecological community. In recent years, these predators have caused enormous damage to small businesses (in particular, farmers), as well as residents of villages and villages. Animals have become more adapted to living in the immediate vicinity of populated areas; they are no longer afraid to come to the same place several times; in recent years, cases of the appearance of such wild animals in populated areas, as well as their attacks on livestock and poultry, have become more frequent. It should also be noted that all of these predators are potentially carriers of infectious diseases of animals included in their diet. For example, the main “reservoir” of the rabies virus in nature are wild foxes, wolves, jackals, and wild cats. When bitten by such an infected animal, any mammal can become infected with rabies. However, all warm-blooded animals without exception suffer from rabies, so any animal can be a carrier. In addition, most birds can also be classified as “harmful” animals, since, having the ability to move long distances, they significantly deviate the area of infection (territorially).
Another problem is related to the loss of game in the lands during natural and artificial reproduction. It is known that the state of self-reproducing resources of living nature depends on two processes - reproduction and losses (death, migration, removal by humans). The level of reproduction, for example, of game birds in a particular hunting farm depends on its numbers at the time of the breeding season, on the number of birds that have nested and successfully completed incubation, on the number of eggs in clutches and chicks raised. Losses consist of the death of nests, mortality of adult birds and young animals from predators, diseases, climatic factors, hunger, emigration to neighboring lands, indirect and direct (hunting) anthropogenic impact (Gabuzov, 1982). Collecting information, and the very process of calculating the degree of losses and the level of reproduction, requires a lot of human resources. Analysis of the level of reproduction and loss of game is usually carried out on the basis of unreliable data. The very process of reproduction of hunting resources in hunting farms is accompanied by significant financial costs, due to the absence in our region of a unified joint policy for the reproduction of all enterprises of the fishing and hunting cluster. Each hunting user is engaged in reproduction based on his capabilities.
Currently, the problem of pollution of hunting areas with various human waste products, mainly associated with the unauthorized release of solid waste, is very acute. Of the reviewed protocols on the case of administrative violations filed over the past year, more than 60% were drawn up for unauthorized dumping of garbage on hunting grounds. Moreover, it is impossible to immediately assess the damage caused to the nature of the hunting area. Because of such landfills, the soil, inland water bodies, ground water and atmosphere are primarily affected. All this leads either to a rapid decrease in the number and species diversity of the food supply of animals and birds, or to the complete destruction of first the food supply, and then to the death of entire species.
From the group of anthropogenic (human) factors, it is necessary to pay attention to the factor of concern as a problematic one. From time to time, publications appear in the regional media about the damage caused to the nature of the region by all kinds of tourists, fishermen or hunters visiting our region. In this regard, so-called “wild” (unorganized) tourists are often mentioned. Visitors to numerous both legal and illegal bases and stopping points bring considerable concern to waterfowl. Such interference (especially during the period of nesting, hatching and raising chicks) in nature negatively affects the total number of species and the diversity of biocenoses as a whole. Such tourists, as a rule, do not pay any attention to the existence of a “quiet zone” in hunting grounds, the presence of which they are initially informed about. However, even in these territories, vacationers allow themselves to ride on boats and jet skis, believing that, having paid, they have the right to everything. Only a few representatives of law enforcement agencies in these places can fight them. In this problem, I would like to touch upon the problem of the coincidence of the period when birds begin nesting and the fishing season of industrial fishermen. As a result, in quiet areas, the engines of fishing boats and boats can be heard at least twice a day, because fishing gear must be checked regularly. It seems that everyone understands that they need to catch fish, but there are no more birds, with the exception of the great cormorant and hooded crow, in such places. The problem of the impact of fires (both natural and anthropogenic) on the species diversity and number of game animals. Astrakhan region - in summer, the territory is fire hazardous, with a high level of fire. It is impossible to predict where and under what circumstances a fire will occur. Most fires in our region occur due to arson. The attackers are most often the same farmers who burn dead wood, which is a necessary element for nesting game, caring for the immediate benefit and benefit for their livestock - mistakenly believing that this leads to an improvement in the food supply and an increase in fresh young grass. In this case, irreparable damage is caused to nature: the fertile layer of soil and nesting areas of game are burned, and young species living in these territories die. Not long ago, a fire occurred on the territory of the Damchik section of the Astrakhan State Natural Biosphere Reserve, resulting in enormous damage - the wild boar population burned out. As a result, the species, whose numbers were almost restored, is now again on the verge of extinction. This also affected the influx of hunting tourists, since boar as a trophy is very valuable in the hunting community.
All this is only a small fraction of environmental and biological problems. The solution to such problems, in our opinion, is only possible in conjunction with solving problems in the financial and legislative spheres.
The group of organizational and cultural problems reflects the difficulties associated with the lack of a culture of conducting tours, as well as with a number of organizational failures that occur in the region, and which reduce the degree of success of the implementation of hunting tours:
The field of hunting tourism in our region is currently experiencing an acute shortage of marketing specialists to conduct marketing research. Only a marketer, based on data from such research, can develop the correct and necessary concept for the development and promotion of services in this field of activity. It is specialists of this level who can competently write a plan for the implementation of the concept they have developed, as well as point to indicators that can comprehensively assess the effectiveness of its implementation. The first step in attracting a marketer to the field of hunting tourism, apparently, can be considered the creation of a fishing and hunting cluster.
Lack of competent advertising of hunting tourism, and the fishing and hunting cluster as a whole. Advertising of hunting services, which currently appears occasionally in the Astrakhan region, is not capable of competing for tourist clients. All this advertising resembles the work of an amateur who has no experience in this work. There are no measures taken in the region to determine the effectiveness of hunting tourism advertising. Many tourist centers have adopted modern technologies and created websites for their enterprises, but only a few of them can be attractive to a “new” client. There are a lot of sites that, in our dynamic age, are too static: the information on them is updated, at best, once every three years; navigation, convenient and understandable to potential consumers, is generally not considered when creating websites; As a rule, there are no visitor counters, since on these sites you can only find out a telephone number for communication, and there is no need to talk about interactive feedback at all. The creation of a fishing and hunting cluster in the Astrakhan region could only be learned from a few reports in the media. There is no mention of any advertising campaign for this cluster or the enterprises included in it. Accordingly, a sharp increase in tourists in this direction is also not expected.
I would like to pay special attention to the problem of the lack of independent certification of categories of rangers as specialists. Currently, there is no unified system for testing the knowledge of rangers. Unfortunately, on hunting farms a huntsman can be a person who does not have special education. All knowledge testing is carried out during interviews, which cannot be controlled and cannot confirm or refute the fact of having the necessary knowledge. The creation of quality standards and the introduction of mandatory certification for this category of positions (specialists) will allow tourists to feel more comfortable during their vacation, thanks to confidence in the quality of the services provided.
It should be noted that now the most acute problem is the independent assessment of knowledge of the hunting minimum, both among specialists and ordinary hunters. Hunting minimum is a set of minimum knowledge established by order of the Ministry of Natural Resources of Russia dated June 30, 2011 No. 568, which every hunter must know and must be checked without fail by the authorized body issuing a hunting license. In the Astrakhan region, such a body is the Service for Natural Resources Management and Environmental Protection of the Astrakhan Region. It was experimentally revealed that such knowledge testing is only formal. However, despite this, a hunting license is still issued. The significance of this document is difficult to overestimate, because it is the basis and permission for obtaining a license for weapons and not only for storing them, but also for carrying them. Consequently, a person who has not passed the minimum hunting knowledge test may, due to his ignorance, cause damage to the health of another person, to wild animals prohibited from shooting, or to himself. As you know, “ignorance of the laws does not exempt you from responsibility.”
Currently, this area is in dire need of introducing new modern technologies, especially in the area of providing services for purchasing permits or vouchers. In our region there are practically no industries left that do not, to one degree or another, sell their services via the Internet. In hunting tourism, only tourist centers use the worldwide network, but only to pay for their services. At the same time, despite the active development of the “State Services” system through the “Electronic Government” portal, the only service that hunters can implement on it is obtaining and renewing a license to store and carry weapons (Figure 3). Unfortunately, the services of the environmental management and environmental protection service of the Astrakhan region are not presented on this interactive platform, but presence on it significantly increases the number of users of this service.
Figure 3. "Services provided in the Astrakhan region through the Electronic Government portal. State Services"
The group of legislative problems reflects the imperfection of existing regulations and those requiring their refinement, improvement or development of an additional regulatory framework for hunting tourism in certain specific issues:
The problem of low “non-intimidating fines” is one of the most pressing problems of our legislation today. We are forced to admit the fact that low penalties, in some way, even stimulate the development of poaching in the region. Indeed, in current legislation, the fine for violating hunting rules varies from five hundred to two thousand rubles, despite the fact that the cost of a permit to extract hunting resources on the territory of state hunting farms (State Fund) is four hundred rubles. In the territories of the largest hunting user - the public organization "Rosokhotrybolovsoyuz" - if you join the association, the cost of a seasonal voucher is two thousand rubles, and without joining it - three thousand rubles. From the above it is clear that the cost of a voucher is either practically equal to the amount of the fine for hunting without it, or higher than the amount of the fine. This is where the temptation arises, both for the law-abiding citizen and for the law-breaker, to avoid purchasing a permit or voucher, and to neglect the rules of hunting. As a result, we have seen a significant increase in poaching activity in the region.
Violation of safety rules when handling weapons, especially while drunk. This problem is directly related to harm to health. Of course, statistics on how the hunting process actually goes are not announced anywhere, but at the same time, every year during the autumn hunting period at least 50 cases are opened in the Astrakhan region in this part of violations, when hunters, while drunk, inflict gunshot wounds on others hunters With such statistics, it becomes clear that a certain (and, unfortunately, not a small) proportion of rangers are negligent in their official duties, allowing hunters to leave while intoxicated.
The biggest problem that affects the image of the Astrakhan region, the biological and natural potential of the region, is the problem of poaching. Due to unrecorded shooting of wild animals, it is very difficult to analyze and predict the degree of loss in the biodiversity of the game reserve. As a result, incorrect measures may be taken to reproduce certain species.
Lack of specialized certification for hunting travel agencies, since certification according to the general requirements of travel agencies does not apply to them. Requirements for hunting tourism enterprises and the services they provide should be standardized, primarily in the interests of consumers who want to be sure that they are receiving services of appropriate quality. The problem is that travel agency employees know the general requirements for hotels, routes, stopping points, safety precautions and other components of tourism in general, but at the same time they have no idea about many of the details related to the organization of hunting. It is important to know the sequence of organizing hunting tours, the requirements of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the import, transportation, use and storage of weapons, the set of permits giving the right to hunt and organize hunting, etc.
From all of the above it is clear that at the present stage of development of hunting tourism in the Astrakhan region there are numerous and sometimes intractable problems that require comprehensive solutions from the region.
Today, only the lazy don’t talk about nature conservation. Politicians, environmentalists, managers of large mining and processing enterprises, housewives and even children at school are constantly worried about protecting the environment - forests, natural resources, lands, wildlife. The list by default also includes the hunting wealth of our planet, which requires not only the preservation of the existing population of wild animals, but also reasonable management in this area, the renewal of the number of those that in some regions are teetering on the brink. But a healthy, properly managed population of game can always and endlessly provide people with meat, fur, feathers and down, as well as provide the opportunity for active recreation - hunting. What are the current trends in hunting in the world and in our country - a review below.
Today, only the lazy don’t talk about nature conservation. Politicians, environmentalists, managers of large mining and processing enterprises, housewives and even children at school are constantly worried about protecting the environment - forests, natural resources, lands, wildlife. The list by default also includes the hunting wealth of our planet, which requires not only the preservation of the existing population of wild animals, but also reasonable management in this area, the renewal of the number of those that in some regions are teetering on the brink. But a healthy, properly managed population of game can always and endlessly provide fur, feathers and down, and also provide the opportunity for active recreation - hunting. What are the current trends in hunting in the world and in our country - a review below.
Global trends in the development of hunting areas
The task of preserving and improving the population is faced not only by interested hunters and biologists, but also by society as a whole.
In some European countries, more wild animals die every year under the wheels of cars than from hunters' bullets. So far, this issue worries only ecologists and nature conservationists - they study statistics, map the most dangerous places, put up warning signs, for example, that the road is frequented in this place or there are deer.
Or the road is fenced off - but this is a very expensive and impractical solution, because in this way the migration routes of animals are blocked. Reflective plates are also installed on corners, which warn animals of approaching danger. There have also been attempts to build special tunnels under the road, but most animals ignore them and follow the beaten path. Greater success will come from the construction of aircraft carriers. But it's even more expensive.
Russian road sign "Wild animals on the road"
Enormous damage to wildlife is caused by human economic activity - drainage and cultivation of land, changes in the water landscape, deforestation and mining, construction of industrial enterprises and transport networks lead to an increasingly limited living space for wild animals, which die from lack of food and stress.
So far, few methods have been invented to protect wildlife at the regional and state levels.
The first is the organization of reserves, game reserves and parks, where the natural complex is under strict state protection and human intervention is kept to a minimum.
The second option is the formation of hunting farms, in which lands are given to the care of groups (or clubs) of hunters not only with the right to hunt there, but also with obligations to maintain their condition at the proper level.
Hunting is not a new thing. Even the Egyptian nobility kept lands with wild animals for entertainment. were protected for at least twelve centuries. And Emperor Genghis Khan limited the hunting of certain types of game in his domains, when it became clear that farmers and warriors would simply exhaust mountain sheep and saigas for meat, despite their huge numbers. The American Indians had strict restrictions on the number of animals killed in one season in one area, so as not to deplete their reserves and reproductive capabilities.
Bugs and problems
In the desire to manage living natural resources, humanity has made many mistakes. One of them was the destruction of one species of animals that people believed to be coyotes and the protection of those they hunted. For example, at the beginning of the 20th century in the United States, almost all predatory animals were destroyed in the area of Yellowstone Park, which led to a sharp increase in the number. Their numbers became so great that it became a disaster for the entire region. During the very cold winter of 1919/20 alone, more than 20 thousand animals died from cold and hunger, and another 4 thousand wapiti were shot by hunters. Then the number of wolves, bears and pumas was restored and they now independently regulate the number of deer at the proper level.
The second mistake is bringing wild animals into places where they have never lived. Of the successful such actions, based on the results, experts name only two: breeding in the USA and brown trout.
All the rest had unpleasant and even tragic consequences for local ecosystems. For example, carp introduced into US water bodies replaced almost all local, much more valuable fish species. The muskrat, brought to Europe from the USA, has become a real pest here, just like the gray squirrel. When it was brought to New Zealand, in just 10 years of life without natural enemies it became an enemy of the nature of these islands. And the government distributed free ammunition to hunters to destroy livestock. Now there are practically no deer in the wild there - only in special farms. Mongooses were brought to Jamaica to destroy snakes, and at the same time they ate almost all the land crabs, which previously constituted a significant item of export income. Now the Jamaican government is looking for ways to get rid of the mongooses. In recent decades, they have become much more careful with such experiments.
Another mistake in environmental protection is when authorities, out of good intentions, issue serious laws without first consulting with biologists and without sufficient qualifications to understand the processes taking place.
A striking example is that the authorities of some American states have banned the hunting of female deer. It seems that the goal is noble and the protests of game managers were ignored. When the females stopped being shot, the population began to grow sharply and in literally three years there were so many animals in the area that its resources became insufficient for everyone. Starving deer began to produce sick offspring, caused catastrophic damage to their habitat (which has not been restored for more than 10 years), and the population itself practically died out.
But, nevertheless, it is set at a very high level and stably ensures the maximum possible production of game birds and animals without reducing the population, as well as the full conservation of their habitat.
What will change in Russian hunting in 2015 – 2017
And now to domestic realities. Based on the results of studying the activities of the Russian Department of Hunting under the Ministry of Nature of the Russian Federation for 2014, this body accepted for consideration and implementation two main documents concerning the main tasks and changes for the coming years of the Russian hunting industry.
Received the working title “Strategy for the development of hunting management for 2015-2017.” and until 2030" and the "Action Plan" for the implementation of this Strategy.
The need for such changes has been long overdue - primarily due to the absolutely ineffective and sometimes illegal use of Russian hunting grounds. Contributing, among other things, to the massive spread of poaching, misuse of hunting base territories and other actions that transform the noble art of hunting into a way of personal gain and theft of state resources.
Taking into account the above, the state has planned a number of measures, the main ones being tracking the number of animals from space, eliminating the black market for furs, destroying underground “forest” dens, restaurants and hotels, providing support to legal hunters (while simultaneously tightening attitudes towards illegal ones), the introduction of Western style - number tags for and much more.
A separate line should be mentioned about the direction of efforts and funds to organize mass enclosure and semi-enclosure breeding of animals.
Expected reaction
The Department expects a wave of criticism and negative reactions to many innovations - but not at all constructive, but related to the disinterest of many influential persons and structures in such changes. The reason for this is obvious - the loss of huge profits and easy, essentially uncontrollable, ways to turn hunting grounds into your own feeding grounds and places for “intimate relaxation” - both your own and many “dear guests”. Such a “pseudo-social” liberal layer of organizations will have a serious lobby - however, when trying to find out their roots already in 2014, it was repeatedly discovered that they turned out to be the heirs of various disbanded institutions, interdepartmental lobbyists, restructured for debts of unknown origin and subordination of agencies, etc. .
Unfortunately, many of the planned innovations will not meet with understanding among ordinary hunters - which is due to the still largely ineradicable attitude towards hunting (and not only hunting - but also fishing, forest gathering and other extraction of forest products), as well as poaching .
The essence of which is pure consumerism - without the slightest concern about the restoration of forest resources. Be it livestock, birds, fish or a slowly renewable resource of not only fauna, but also flora.
Perfectly understanding and taking into account these factors, the state as a whole and the Department of Hunting and the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation in particular, however, will strictly adhere to the chosen direction of a radical change in attitude towards the forest around us and its inhabitants. And when communicating with hunters and owners (current and future) of hunting farms, patiently explain the ongoing Strategy and the inevitability of the chosen civilizational path towards Nature and Hunting.
First changes to hunting agreements
- First of all, the work will be aimed at sectoral sustainable development - including measures to increase the number of wild animals and birds, preserve and increase species diversity, sustainability of ecosystems and simplify the accessibility of hunting for ordinary citizens;
- the practice of long-term (with the impossibility of making changes) hunting agreements lasting 20-40 years will be subject to change, often leading to massive violations and changes in both the qualitative and territorial composition of hunting lands - up to the use of these lands for other than their intended purpose;
- when transferring rights and responsibilities from one hunting user to another, the priority will be the choice of a user who is determined to increase the number of animals and carry out other activities useful for hunting - as opposed to the current trend of using hunting lands for rent, illegal construction, etc.;
- There will be a significant reduction in administrative barriers to formalize the acquisition of hunting lands for use, renegotiation of contracts, extension of terms and amendments to agreements.
Harmonization of hunting and forestry legislation
Currently, the hunting leaseholder carries out a variety of (including truly necessary) measures for forest protection - including protecting the site, ensuring its fire safety, preparing projects for land development, incurring financial costs - but the forest DOES NOT CHANGE.
All this is good - but it does not contribute in any way to the main purpose of the hunting farm: increasing the number of animals.
According to the new Strategy, it will be mandatory to create enclosures in designated areas for breeding and keeping them in conditions of semi-free existence. At the same time, the rules for planned biotechnical activities that do not harm the forest, as well as the possibility of fencing enclosure areas, will be approved by the federal executive authority.
In a word, the game user will have to turn exclusively into the creator and guardian of the hunting livestock - and not the builder of illegal hotels, brothels and bathhouses, who also do not pay taxes and work for the pockets of those lobbying for their existence, creating a vicious vicious circle of state ownership of private property. owner taking advantage of loopholes in the law.
Improving the hunting management procedure
The current system of arrangement of hunting farms without unified all-Russian requirements will also disappear - in which in each subject of the Russian Federation, arrangement measures are invented “out of the blue.”
Not only are such actions often far from professionalism and rational use of budget funds, but they are also not mandatory, and their performers are organizations that are not subject to state accreditation. In the new Procedure, accreditation of a single standard will become mandatory, as well as a certain list of development activities that are mandatory for implementation throughout Russia.
Streamlining production turnover
The main thing in this direction will be the mandatory practice of marking hunted animals or birds with special numbered self-fixing seals - without which it has long been impossible. Such an innovation will make it possible to stop (or at least significantly reduce) many existing violations. First of all, poaching, the flourishing of the “black market”, shooting several animals for 1 permit, non-payment of taxes, shooting wild animals as “bred”, etc.
Without the use of marking seals, hunting will be strictly prohibited - with quite serious fines for violating this requirement (up to 5 thousand rubles for individuals, up to 50 thousand rubles for officials and up to 1 million rubles for legal entities).
