Press Release
For immediate release
22th September 2010

Slaughter of Geese near Arkhangelsk: Russian Stars and VITA Animal Rights Center Against VIP Hunters in Belomorsky (White Sea) Wildlife Sanctuary

Today, on 22nd September 2010, VITA Animal Rights Center sent the appeal to Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia with request on conducting the comprehensive inspection on the facts of unprecedentally impudent crimes against the law and on severe punishment of those guilty in organization of mass murder of geese in the territory prohibited for hunting. The appeal was signed by prominent persons of culture and art – Artemy Troitsky, Andrey Makarevich, Evgeny Mironov, Eldar Ryazanov, Leonid Yarmolnik, Tatiana Dogileva, Elena Safonova and others.

The appeal was caused by events that take place four running times annually in Lugovoye settlement near Arkhangelsk City. This miraculous place is well known to all inhabitants of Arkhangelsk and nearby villages. Here, within the borders of the city, by the road to Moscow, thousands of migrating wild geese stay each spring for their rest halt. The picture is charming indeed, and many cars stop here, people take pictures of birds that are not intimidated by men to such extent that may visit sometimes vegetable gardens of local inhabitants. Geese are really tame because it was always strictly prohibited not only to hunt geese in Lugovoye (warnings of prohibition remained here from Soviet epoch) but also to produce harsh sounds, noise and other stressing situations which might scare birds taking rest on their way of yearly migration. It is one of the key water-marshy lands of the world scale, the subject of international jurisdiction (according to the data from the Northern Branch of All-Russia Research Institute of hunting and animal breeding).

However, four years ago a real slaughter occurred in Lugovoye for the first time. It was arranged for high-ranked functionaries from Moscow. According to the information from some mass media, Nikolay Kiselev, ex-governor of Arkhangelsk Region, took part in this massacre too. The situation even worsened when the seat of governor got occupied by Mr. Mikhalchuk who by that time had been already ill-famed for his poaching in Yakutia where he had killed several snow rams related to critically endangered species. Non-stopping gun shots in the sanctuary during May holidays became an annual “tradition”. As a result, hundreds of geese perish, plus a large amount of them became badly wounded. Local inhabitants find a lot of dead and badly wounded birds on the days next to hunting.

According to the information from VITA Animal Rights Center, the organizer of hunting sessions in Lugovoye is V.F. Butorin, an entrepreneur from Ustyansky, who each year requests a permit for shooting geese, in allegedly “scientific” purposes, from Mikhalchuk, governor of Arkhangelsk Region.

For guarding “elite hunters”, the place of rest halt for geese is cordoned off by militia on days of hunting. Those who do not take part in hunting are not permitted to access the territory. “Okhotnadzor” (the official state body supervising observation of rules of hunting) peremptorily refused to comment the situation. Militia and prosecutor’s office didn’t see any crime in the described actions. Taking into account such a position of official state bodies, local mass media kept silence for four long years.

This year VITA Animal Rights Center, after having collected all the available information from the press, decided to check the facts by itself. Aleksey Skrobansky, coordinator of VITA branch in Arkhangelsk, arrived to Lugovoye on 23rd of May at 4.30 a.m. In Zelenets settlement which lays opposite to the turn to Lugovoye he found two black Toyota Land Cruisers (reg. Nos. Н627СА29 and Н659КВ29) and a black car of undefined model (reg. No. Н528ОО29). When Aleksey was approaching Lugovoye he was stopped by a black car (reg. No. Н528ОО29) from where a man alighted and presented himself as an officer of Federal Security Service (he showed his service pass). He was accompanied by another young man with a service pass of Ministry of Internal Affairs. Both of them put down Aleksey’s passport data in their pad books and, when being asked about the reason of stopping him, answered: “You occurred in a wrong place at a wrong time”. The further way to Lugovoye was closed to Aleksey, and he with his comrades returned to Zelenets from where he and his two comrades rode along the river to the place from where shots were heard.

Aleksey managed to take pictures of hunters’ hide-outs and geese falling from shooting, but in some minutes two men came up to the car and demanded to immediately leave the place. When Aleksey and his comrades left the place in the directed way they were stopped by two UAZ off-roaders: one being grey, with reg. No Н537ХК29, the second also grey, without reg. No. in front. Five men went out of the off-roaders, three of them in militia uniforms and two in khaki clothes, came up to Aleksey’s car and demanded to get out. In the car without reg. number there were two militiamen, one of them on Aleksey’s request showed his service pass with name of Vladimir Dzyubenko, senior sergeant; the second had shoulder straps of sergeant. In the car with reg. No. Н537ХК29 there was a man with shoulder straps of senior lieutenant who showed his service pass with name of Aleksey Danilov, and two men in khaki clothes.

Militiamen tried to psychologically suppress Aleksey, behave in insolent and brass manner, threatened him with “problems in future”. They frisked the car, looked through phone numbers in Aleksey’s mobile phone and, after having found the photo camera, deleted all images without any explanations (afterwards, photos were restored by VITA Center). They ordered Aleksey to show them his car left in the place of his detention to where they transported him by the car Н537ХК29. While inspection of the car was made, Aleksey saw two black Toyota Land Cruisers which started to move from Lugovoye in direction of Arkhangelsk accompanied by UAZ without a reg. number. When the latter turned and started for Arkhangelsk Aleksey saw that its rear plate with reg. number was covered with a piece of a rag.

On basis of the collected facts, VITA Animal Rights Center sent the appeal to Prosecutor’s Office of Arkhangelsk Region which, in turn, resent the materials to Prosecutor’s Office of Primorsky District. The latter made requests to Federal Security Service and Ministry of Internal Affairs in Arkhangelsk Region but these two bodies (no doubt!) didn’t find any law infringements. Primorsky Investigation Department subordinated to Prosecutor’s Office checked the facts of the illegal activity of militia and also didn’t find any law infringements. Materials on basis of the facts of illegal issue of permit for hunting were resent to Lomonosovsky Investigation Department subordinated to Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Federation (the answer is now being waited for), and materials about illegal hunting and forgery of registration numbers of the vehicles were sent to Primorsky Department of Internal Affairs from where VITA received today a refusal in initiating a criminal case.

“While local functionaries are deeply corrupted, we still hope that Prosecutor General’s Office will not ignore the letter signed by well-known people of art and culture", says Irina Novozhilova, President of VITA Animal Rights Center, "and will define signs of crime in the presented facts, especially in actions of courageous “servants of law" who "guarded" the law with cars whose registration numbers were hidden with rags (photos attached). Otherwise, we will have nothing to do but to wait for Heavenly Justice which more and more frequently makes helicopters with high-ranked scoundrels fall down, and this remains a drop of hope both for animals and for people who are not indifferent to places where they live and to the way of their lives”.

VITA Animal Rights Center
www.vita.org.ru
vita@vita.org.ru