Thursday, Sep 28 2023

All Cities

Choose Your City

'Right on the bank of the river there is a station Ob, a big trading city with magnificent cathedral, great schools and shops — very American-like.'

1904, priest Mitrophan Serebryaniy

Shocking sight of one of the world's rarest tigers gunned down by illegal hunter

By The Siberian Times reporter

13 November 2012

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.

Comments (4)

All comments
Best rated comments

Add comment

Horrible just horrible! They are just animals. I have seen photos of people monkeys even though right now you are killing people as we came monkeys. Good thing he went to jail!

NS-5, Singapore

29/05/2020 10:05

George 1415 is ignorant. American hunters don't travel and hunt tigers & have no affiliation with tiger hunting in any way.

Tick-tock, United States

14/03/2020 20:21

This is what Americans don't see, or care to see when it comes to hunting great animals. A century ago British hunted great animals in Africa with long guns. Today the USA is doing it, see hunting magazines, big game hunting. The USA is following UK a century behind, and are living the colonist age. So many homes in Texas contain heads of animals hunted on the walls. Among them a few great animals are common to see. Ernest Hemingway, like most writers himself an adventurer, took trips to Africa and hunted great animals. Most animals killed by hunters in Africa have the heads stuffed locally before shipping them to the USA. With lions they typically stuff the whole animal and make it stand in a room like a frozen wild cat, a room surrounded by hunted animal heads on the walls. And the really expensive carpet under it, they collect their hunt this way. Meanwhile UK is no longer about hunting and long guns. They are Orwell. Which means in a century the USA will be Orwell. Today they are colonists with long guns, taking the heads to the US (typically to Texas) and feeding the rest of the animal to starving people in Africa. But how can they feed their local national animals to them? They say a giraffe feeds 150 people. Which is what remained of the We are the World song. In 10-20 years the Great Animal Kingdom vanishes including lions. Most great animals see five percent drop or more in their population each year. They feed chimps and gorillas to starving in Africa. And they blame Chinese quickly. In the past they blamed Russians. But in reality Texans hunt, won’t stop big game hunting or colonist rhetoric for long times to come, and just walk into their homes, and you will see even elephant heads on the wall there. Yes, elephant heads inside Texas homes, trophies, yes, in colonist age and bed that Americans reserve in their hunting magazines with tigers killed over and over and over in pictures by hunters when only 3000 of them remain. America.

George1415, USA

29/08/2016 21:26

well done for banning him from hunting for life AND for the fine

Zhenya, Russia

14/11/2012 00:47