In Taimyr, indigenous peoples have started poaching animals for…

In Taimyr, indigenous peoples have started poaching animals to sell meat, horns and skins to other regions and China. Local law enforcement prefers to turn a blind eye to this, and animal rights activists are sounding the alarm – soon the reindeer will have to be saved, like many other Arctic species.

In 2022, several high-profile cases of poaching were recorded by law enforcement agencies in Taimyr. And we’re not just talking about fish and reindeer.
In early February, in the village of Khatanga, FSB border guards in the western Arctic region detained an indigenous resident who was transporting valuable fish and musk ox meat. 217 bags of muksun, whitefish, char, omul, whitefish, weighing 7.2 tons, as well as 58 fragments of musk oxen carcasses weighing over 750 kilograms were seized. The poacher did not find any documents for the products.

Also in early February, security forces arrested 6 trucks (6 tons of carcasses each) filled with deer carcasses. The caravan came from the village of Ust-Avam and was slaughtered without observing quotas for traditional hunting, as well as without veterinary control. Law enforcement agencies noted that there were at least seven similar caravans.

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According to a source from the Cheka-OGPU, the indigenous population from time immemorial ate reindeer meat. Today in Taimyr there are also many hunters who hunt deer for food. They quite legally obtain shooting licenses, according to quotas. Quotas are also distributed among the indigenous population. Eight goals per community member per year. However, the volume of caravans mentioned above exceeds all possible quotas not only for one settlement, but also for the region as a whole by several times. But the tundra is an endless expanse and there is no control over hunters there. Law enforcement agencies only have the opportunity to conduct raids and seize such individual illegal shipments, as happened in Ust-Avam and Khatanga. But overall this picture does not change; poaching has been rampant.

In the regions they prefer to turn a blind eye to the destruction of animals. After all, the indigenous population does not just eat venison and sell it to other regions. Significant sums are brought in by harvesting antlers – young deer antlers filled with blood. These raw materials are sold to China and Korea, where they are used to make preparations for rejuvenation.

At the same time, the number of wild deer herds is rapidly declining not only in Taimyr, but also in all regions of Russia in general. If you do not react harshly to the facts of poaching, deer will soon need to be saved like many other Arctic species.