Poacher: Police Ignore Facts

On July 18, at 11:30 AM, the police department in Noyemberyan received materials prepared regarding illegal hunting by a 45-year-old resident of Abovyan Street in Vanadzor, reports Econews.am. According to an article published online, public data from the Vanadzor resident's social media page have been examined, resulting in the recording of evidence indicating illegal hunting.

The Vanadzor resident provided an explanation to the Gugark police department that in the summer of 2014, he encountered two unknown hunters in the adjacent forest to Noyemberyan, and took a photo with them alongside a dead mouflon. The unknown hunters informed him that they had killed the mouflon in that same forest.

Thanks to the actions taken by the Noyemberyan police department, on July 25, the 45-year-old Vanadzor resident provided another explanation, claiming that in the summer of 2015, he killed a mouflon using a smoothbore hunting rifle registered in his name in an area called "Zhiarazi Urt" in the administrative territory of Noyemberyan, after which he took a photograph.

This information was shared by the public relations office of the RA police in response to the publication by EcoNews.am. Let us remind you that EcoNews.am, an environmental informational site, had alerted about poaching incidents committed by citizens Gevorg Avetyan and Aram Julhakyan.

Although the official police statement mentions only the killed mouflon, the photos we published indicate several instances of illegal hunting, including the poaching of lynxes, badgers, rabbits, and more. Once again, we emphasize that hunting the aforementioned species is also prohibited, thus serving as additional proof of illegal hunting. We urge the RA police to take steps to clarify the circumstances surrounding the hunting of these species.

It is also noteworthy that according to the data provided by the police, the illegal hunting was carried out with a legal smoothbore hunting rifle, which means that the individual in question is a member of a hunting union.

We have previously addressed the situation in the hunting sector. According to our studies, there is a lack of adequate oversight in the field of hunting in Armenia, and due to the incompleteness of the process for obtaining a unified hunting license, as well as the complete absence of practices for handing over the minimum required for hunting as stipulated by the Law on “Hunting and Management of Hunting Resources,” a chaotic situation has arisen in the sector, for which the primary responsible party is the state authorized body, which has failed to properly execute its powers and responsibilities for nearly a decade.