MOSCOW, July 20. /TASS/. The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has developed a Russian government decree project, which offers to consider brown and Himalayan bears a strategically important resource due to a decrease in these animals’ population. The document is published on the website for regulatory legal act projects.
The explanatory note informs that these special legal protection measures are necessary due to a high demand for bears on illegal foreign markets.
Article 226.1 of the Russian Criminal Code ("Contraband of strategically important products, resources or cultural property, as well as valuable wild animals and marine biological resources") establishes prison sentences of up to 12 years or a fine up to 1 mln rubles (about $15,800) for its violation. The initiative seeks to amend the article and to "establish that animal species falling under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora signed on March 3, 1973, are considered strategically important products and resources, namely the brown bear (ursus arctos), the Himalayan, or the white-chested bear (selenarctos thibetanus), and the Siberian musk deer (moschus spp.)," the document states.
In March, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office stated that in the last two years, the population of the Russian brown bear has decreased by 36% - from 225,000 species in 2015 to 143,000 in 2017. One of the main reasons for the population decrease is poaching. Moreover, in June, the Prosecutor General’s office offered to include all species of the brown bear in the Red Data Book of the Russian Federation.