A man has been jailed for gunning down a protected Siberian tiger in the Far Eastern Russian region of Primoye.
Amur tiger gunned by Alexander Belyaev, now banned from hunting for life. Picture: Russian WWF, Sergei Aramilev
A man has been jailed for gunning down a protected Siberian tiger in the Far Eastern Russian region of Primoye.
He was also fined 575,000 roubles - around £18,000 - for slaughtering one of perhaps 200 of these rare big cats left in the wild.
Alexander Belyaev was also jailed for a year and sentenced to two months of community service for slaying a creature protected in the Russian Red Book.
The man was also banned for life from using a hunting gun.
The case happened two years ago but it has taken until now to be dealt with by the courts.
'Finally, now the investigation is over, so we no longer have restrictions on talking about the criminal case and can explain what happened two years ago on that day in the forest', said WWF Amur co-ordinator Sergei Aramilev.
'Imposing of penalties on those who had kill tigers is no longer an extraordinary event, and it's good news, as we see in action the principle of the inevitability of punishment.
'I recall that in the last three years, this is the third conviction. In comparison with the previous period when only one case against a poacher reached the court following the collapse of the USSR until 2009'.
The Kremlin with the WWF has recently drawn up tough new punishments for poaching, part of a concerted programme to save Siberian tigers and leopards from extinction.
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