The article tells about what is poaching, what is its harm to the environment and how to oppose poachers.
Hunting
Man has been hunting and fishing all his history. Even in ancient times, before the domestication of livestock and agriculture, hunting was one of the ways to survive. It is difficult to name the exact time interval when our ancestors became omnivorous, but according to the assumption of paleoanthropologists, it is the use of not only plant but also animal food that has beneficially affected human evolution.
But gradually everything changed. And the first restrictions in hunting and fishing began to appear in the Middle Ages. But they were associated not with concern for the environment, but with the personal mercenary benefit of the feudal lord, who owned the hunting grounds. But they acted mainly only in Europe, and even then not always. In the rest of the world, hunting, fishing, etc., remained the most important factor in survival, since plant food could not feed everyone.
But in our time, hunting has turned from a way to feed itself and family into a form of entertainment long ago. However, like fishing. They are mainly engaged in sports interest. However, in some places, however, such crafts are still the main source of income for local residents. But regardless of the region, there are always those who engage in hunting or fishing illegally. Moreover, such people greatly undermine the number of rare species and upset the natural balance, especially if they hunt in reserves. A similar occupation is called poaching. This is not such a rare occurrence. So what is poaching, how is it opposed and what is its greatest danger? In this we will figure it out.
Definition
Poaching is industrial or recreational fishing or hunting that violates applicable laws and regulations on the protection and preservation of the environment. Strictly speaking, this is not only fishing and shooting animals, but also the illegal collection of rare plants, deforestation and all other actions that violate the law and the natural balance. So now we know what poaching is.
The following cases of hunting and fishing also fall under this definition:
- During the breeding season of animals.
- In cases where the hunter or fisherman is missing hunting ticket a license for hunting, fishing, or the amount of its extraction exceeds the established maximum norm.
- With the use of weapons or pyrotechnic means, the use of which is prohibited by law in hunting or fishing.
- From any type of air or land transport. In the case of a boat, fishing or shooting from it is possible only with the engine turned off.
- If the hunt is for rare, endangered or listed in the Red Book animal species.
So we figured out what poaching is. Now let's talk about the harm that all these actions cause to the environment.
Harm
The main problem of the consequences of poaching is that even when illegal shooting of ordinary, not rare or endangered species is carried out, due to non-compliance with quotas for their production, the population is reduced very quickly. As a result, the so-called defaunization takes place: the number of animals recovers more slowly than their destruction. This leads to a serious violation of the ecological balance of a single forest, reservoir or region as a whole. And illegal hunting, fishing and other ways of catching animals without observing quotas and rules lead to this.
Tourism is also often affected by poaching, or various diseases and entire epidemics erupt. For example, the outbreak of the Ebola virus in the Congo in the 1900s occurred precisely due to the consumption of chimpanzee meat by poachers.
Defauning also leads to the fact that due to the imbalance of the animal world, the plant world is also changing. The fight against poachers is also important because they often hunt animals during breeding periods, and the young, left without parents, are guaranteed to die or fall into the hands of criminals who sell them to illegal zoos.
With what harm such activity causes, we figured out. Now let's talk about the reasons that are pushing people to poach.
The reasons
There are many reasons why people engage in illegal shooting of animals or fishing using barbaric methods. Most often in the first place there is a banal thirst for profit, because the official permit strictly limits the number of animals and fish caught, which means that if you do it illegally, you can remain in a big plus after selling the prey.
Also, the reasons for illegal hunting may be the remoteness of people from civilized places. For example, it is very difficult for residents of deaf taiga villages to travel hundreds of kilometers to the city in order to obtain permission to shoot. True, it is difficult to call it full-fledged poaching, because they are engaged in similar activities solely for the sake of their own food.
Sometimes banal laziness also pushes people to this crime, because of which they do not receive an official license. Or greed.
But if you look at the topic of poaching, then illegal sturgeon fishing is always special in it.
A fish
In sturgeon fish species, not only delicious fillet is especially valued, but also caviar, for which illegal fishermen run the risk of being caught by law enforcement agencies. Poaching equipment can be of very different types, but what unites them all is that they cripple fish that have not been caught and greatly violate the bio-balance of the reservoir. Simply put, they allow you to catch a lot at once. But they present the greatest danger when the nets simply forget to pull out, and for a long time they cause the death of the fish. It is also forbidden to use the prison, because after them there are too many injured fish.
Electric fishing pole
But probably, the most barbaric way after using explosives is fishing through electric fishing rods. It is a special device that kills fish in a certain radius in the water by electric discharge. Its savagery lies in the fact that other inhabitants of the reservoir, such as fry, tadpoles, microorganisms, caviar of fish, crayfish and others, also die.
Poaching Penalty
If we talk about fines, they strongly depend on the corpus delicti and the circumstances under which poaching of animals or fishing took place:
- Hunting during the period when the shooting of animals is prohibited entails a fine in the amount of thirty-five to fifty thousand rubles.
- Failure to present or the absence of a hunting ticket, production permits, as well as permits for the storage and carrying of weapons, entails a fine in the amount of twenty-five to forty thousand rubles.
- For poaching in fishing, a fine of from two to five thousand rubles is provided with the confiscation of the catch, vessel and other fishing equipment.
Conclusion
In order not to accidentally receive one of these fines, it is advisable to always be aware of the laws and seasonal rules for fishing or hunting. You should also know the features of the mining tools, and then I can not blame you for such a violation as poaching. The article that governs all the rules in hunting and fishing, in the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation is listed under the number 8.37.
