A Favored Pastime of Russia’s Elites, Trophy Hunting Scourges Country’s Rare Species

VIP hunters including senior Russian officials and wealthy businessmen appear increasingly keen to target protected animals and areas across the country. These efforts, when combined with poor government oversight, could threaten the survival of the country’s rare species, experts told The Moscow Times. “Since the tsarist era, hunting has been seen in Russia as an elite form of relationship building. Bringing a high-ranking official on a hunt is prestigious and beneficial,” said a Russian environmental expert who requested anonymity due to their affiliation with a group targeted by the authorities. One of the highest-ranking professional hunters is former Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who has reportedly hunted in the company of President Vladimir Putin in Siberia and the Far East on several occasions. “Trophy hunting of endangered animals also happens,” the expert said. “Sometimes it\'s blatant — they [hunters] simply do it illegally — and sometimes semi-legally.” In recent years, lawmakers and officials have taken a number of steps to loosen hunting regulations. In March, officials in the northwestern republic of Karelia allocated a portion of land that was previously part of the Ladoga Skerries National Park as hunting grounds after its protected status was removed last year. Experts warn that this reallocation will prove disastrous for the national park’s ecosystem. One businessman who stands to reap benefits from it is Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich, who owns a real estate management firm in the area, according to the environmental news outlet Smola. In 2021, Russia passed amendments allowing protected species to be hunted in “exceptional cases” including scientific purposes or to prevent disease in domestic animals. Activists say that this legal tweak has created a loophole for affluent hunters to kill rare species for trophies under the guise of scientific research, simply by buying off the necessary justification papers.The Russian Club of Mountain Hunters, a nonprofit advocating for legal trophy hunting of hoofed animals in the wild, maintains lists of trophies for which participants can earn points and advance in the club\'s Hunters’ Ranking. Besides non-protected species, these lists feature several named in Russia’s Red Book of threatened species such as the snow sheep, Altai argali and wild goat. State Duma deputy Vladislav Reznik, who co-authored the amendments permitting the hunting of Red Book animals, currently tops

the club’s Hunters’ Ranking. Along with its leader, former FSB special forces operative Eduard Bendersky, the club counts former presidential aide and ex-minister Sergei Yastrzhembsky, current Russian deputies and prominent businessmen among its members. The Russian Club of Mountain Hunters did not respond to The Moscow Times’ request for comment. Controversial pastime Despite being legal in many countries, trophy hunting is a divisive practice, with its critics questioning the morality of killing animals for recreation and arguing that it harms conservation efforts. Hunters maintain that their hobby helps maintain ecosystem balance and that hunting fees and duties can help fund nature conservation. Ex-minister Yastrzhembsky voiced similar sentiments, arguing that wildlife conservation and trophy hunting “must go hand in hand.” “This is exactly what our radicals don\'t understand,” Yastrzhembsky said in 2021, referring to these groups with a Russian-language portmanteau of “zoo” and “schizophrenic.” “Wildlife cannot be fetishized, treated as some deity to be worshiped while ignoring the problems that arise with a lack of regulation of the excess population of predators — wolves or bears. After all, this is a threat to human life," he continued. Beyond the ethical concerns, environmentalists warn that trophy hunting is not as sustainable as its proponents say. Even when it complies with the law, trophy hunting can still harm biodiversity by eliminating the largest animals, which risks depopulating certain species, said Mikhail Yurchenko, an expert from the International Socio-Ecological Union NGO. "Any hunting disrupts the balance in the ecosystem and pollutes the surrounding environment with hunting ammunition. The noise of gunfire also harms animals, especially during the spring hunting season,” Yurchenko told The Moscow Times.Former Kremlin spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky with a hunting trophy. mossafariclub.ruAs an additional stressor for wildlife, hunting can lead to unpredictable consequences when combined with other factors, the anonymous expert said. In Russia’s Far East, Siberian tigers are increasingly encroaching into villages, killing humans or snatching dogs due to a lack of prey in the forests. “At first, wild boars were the tigers’ main hunting target,” the anonymous environmental expert explained. “Then there was an outbreak of African swine fever, which, along with hunting, significantly reduc