STOP ANIMAL BAITING! BAN HUNTING BAITING CENTERS IN RUSSIA!

STOP ANIMAL BAITING&excl BAN HUNTING BAITING CENTERS IN RUSSIA&excl We, the citizens of Russia, appeal to the world society and ask you to support our demand for the ban of baiting and hunting baiting centres (HBC) which are absolutely illegal, barbaric and sadistic. We demand ban on this illegal practice that cruelly violates a number of Russian legislative acts. In the picture of this petition you can see a fox whose jaw is tied up with tape; the fox is completely deprived of any opportunity to defend itself; one of the villains is holding its neck, the other one’s pushing a wooden fork at its throat. Millions of Russians are outraged by widely‐spread entertainment of imbeciles today watching dogs tearing wild animals ‐ foxes, bears, raccoons, wolves, boars, badgers, squirrels, hares, martens, lions, their cubs and even stray dogs and cats – all those who are held down by chains or restrained in cages. Surprisingly, the Russian Ministry of economic development identifies this “activity” as code “9272” – “Other activities, RECREATION AND ENTERTAINMENT…” These creatures live in hell. They are kept in small, dirty cages, covered in their excrement. The cages are so small that the animals can hardly move or change position. They are so hungry that they do not have enough strength to try to protect themselves from dogs. They only leave their cages to be bitten and tortured by dogs. They withstand 30 ‐ 60 dog attacks a day. If an HBC has no animal on the shift, a wounded animal is used, after just a half an hour break. If live baits are wounded or crippled, they are not cured but used for training dogs again and again until they die from their wounds, or from shock or a shot, as they are no longer any use to this ‘bloody school’. "Elaborating" of hunting skills, as the only explanation of HBC existence, is absolutely vicious argument&colon refined space will never teach a dog to have a sense of direction, it just creates an illusion of an easy prey. For this reason Russian leading dog experts consider 90&percnt of dogs‐champions of HBC absolutely unsuitable for hunting. All HBC hold competitions with the most severe rules, authorizing setting several dogs on one animal, maiming animals (death grip), cutting their fangs off. Bears’ eyes are gouged out. Dogs “work” with already injured animals, tearing them to death. Multiple requests from public organizations to various relevant civil services have shown that there are no legal acts that regulate the activity of these institutions. And here what happens in reality. Videos of training from the account of the burrowing master Tatyana Mazunova in YouTube, showing the HBC “Fryazevo” and CBC"Ataman" (all notarized). WARNING&excl Violent content&excl
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In these videos you can see one of the training hunting centers, where dogs tear foxes with tightly duct‐taped jaws, badgers, a boar and even a cat. The process is followed by heart‐rending screaming of the tormented animals, a laughter of training participants and the encouraging hails of HBC “masters”&colon "Bravo&excl", "Bravo, well done&excl" (Such kind of “training” doesn’t take place only in ‘training centres’. After a female bear or fox has been killed in the wild, there is training on the cubs. Hunters are instructed to&colon ‘’bind a wolf cub in the forest clearing. Deliver and hold a pack of dogs 100 steps away from the wolf. The pack examines the wolf cub and attacks it. The hunter comes to the dogs and encourages them to “take” the cub (i.e. to tear it to death). Two days later “hunting” should be repeated on another wolf cub without 2 or 3 most aggressive dogs that had taken part in the previous attack, so the less aggressive ones could tear the new wolf cub up’’). (‘Hunting Dog Breeding’ , V. Leontiev) From the instruction on foxes’ baiting (Great Hunting Encyclopedia’, Ripol, Classic, Moscow, 2010)&colon ‘’At first they use a fox, its mouth and back legs tied with a rope. Then the fox (usually 8‐10 month old) is pushed with a stick into a burrow, then the hunter commands, “Look&excl” And the puppy finds the animal and begins barking. At the command, ‘’Take it&excl’’ the dogs tear the fox up’’. The more aggressive and malicious the dog is the more valuable it is, and is used for breeding. The hunters conduct competitions among the hunting dogs where the live baits are attacked during several days. For example, if a laika dog bites the back legs of bears (they are the most soft and sensitive places of a bear), the price of the dog rises up. The tragic story of a small bear Motya is known worldwide. He was an Ursus Arctos Isabellinus‐ a rare subspecies of the brown bear, declared critically endangered in the Red List of 3 countries and in the List of CITES . The Perm Zoo garden (it is located in the Russian town of Perm) sold this 2‐year old bear to hunters (this is a common thing for this zoo to do). From the following description you can have an idea what Motya looked like after some time of being tortured as a live bait&colon "The bear has a height of a one‐year‐old brown species, physically disproportionate (a big head and a small skinny little body with undeveloped muscles of the pelvis). Because of the small size of the cage and the lack of daily cleaning, the bear is wet and soiled with excrements. This bear is growing up in constrained conditions and is obviously exhausted intentionally, so that it would be easier to handle and use him". The bear’s genitals and nose were eventually torn off during attacks. Thousands of people and many organizations fought for the rescue of Motya. All in vain. Motya was martyred to death. He was replaced by a young female brown bear. Another bear Katya, who had been used as a ‘clown’ in the circus, lived without being able to move in a very tight cage in an old rusty bus, without light or ventilation. Another one, Masha, who worked for many years in the circus, was torn up by hunting dogs in the baiting center of Fryazevo near Moscow. The brown bear is included in the IUCN Red List as a species in danger. Russia is a member of the IUCN. The bears (Ursidae) are included In the Bern Convention for the protection of the wild fauna, flora and nature environment in Europe. Russia is an observer here. In the Convention of CITES, brown bears are listed in Appendix II. Russia has been the member of CITES since 1992. However, bears in Russia are being tortured at many baiting stations. Several Russian legislation acts establish humane treatment towards animals in captivity, and do not provide capturing of wild animals for the purpose of being objects of dogs’ hunting training. The existence of hunting baiting centers violates the following acts of the Russian Federation&colon Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (Art. 245)Civil Code of the Russian Federation (Art. 137)Federal Law "About Fauna" (Art. 26)Federal Law "About Hunting" (Art. 2, Art. 53)Constitution of the Russian Federation (Art. 58)Forestry Code of the Russian Federation (Art. 36)Federal Law "About Veterinary" Russian people, well‐known scientists and actors have opposed the animal baiting. They require hunting baiting centers should be banned. However, public opinion is not taken into consideration in Russia. The government, officials and prosecutors give us absurd, meaningless and incompetent answers. Officials themselves hunt wild animals which are on the Red List. Brown bears, Asian black bears, Amur tigers are slaughtered in the Russian Far East, and their body parts are sent to China. Watch some more videos&colon bear baiting http&colon//www.youtube.com/watch&quest&equalsx5gJP0GyPTk; http&colon//my.mail.ru/video/mail/astrav04/3/114.html&numvideo&equals/mail/astrav04/3/114 circus bear Masha from Fryazevo http&colon//www.fassen.net/954806/pritravka‐po‐medvedu‐fryazevo‐belyj‐gena‐i‐pchelka‐mpg‐mp4/ boar baiting http&colon//www.youtube.com/watch&questv&equalsWwuq8_NcQuk; There are 2000‐4000 HBCs in Russia. They have nothing to do with hunting. Their purpose is commercial profit. It's simple&colon if the mother’s certificated, its puppies cost more. On 21, December, 2017 the Russian State Duma (the Russian Federation Parliament) voted for a number of amendments to the law "About hunting and preservation of hunting resources". The bill was introducing the so‐called non‐contact baiting (a method of dogs’ training which assumes a glass screen or grid barrier between a dog and a live bait). Look how it is all going to be in practice https&colon//youtu.be/NsqAXyR7Leg And who will see to this screen having been set there&quest Therefore, such “training” stations should be banned completely&excl In spite of the evident inferiority of the bill, it was rejected by the Russian Federation Council (FC). Thus, Russia remains the only country where dogs’ training on live baits in captivity takes place&excl The Russian hunting lobby is trying to justify animals baiting as a “Russian tradition”, so it is appropriate to recall the order of Alexander II, Emperor the hunter who banned baiting on live animals in 1863. The ban existed until 1918, i.e. his heirs. Alexander III and Nicholas II supported this ban. In Russia there are no rehabilitation centers for injured wild animals. The Russian fauna today is extremely vulnerable. Nature is the heritage of the whole country, as it is written in the Constitution, not groups or individuals. It is something that we’ll leave or not leave to their descendants. We insist on a complete ban of animal baiting&excl Were it either "non‐contact" or “contact”, animals would experience severe stress, and we, zoo activists, will just not be allowed to see what is going on at these places. Baiting stations are private territories&excl