Is illegal hunting in South Ossetia a new type of business? Scandal involving president and a Russian blogger
illegal hunting in South Ossetia
The President of South Ossetia, Alan Gagloev, was involved in a scandal involving the poaching of a brown bear listed in the Red Book, revealed in a video “A huge bear killed. South Ossetia, ten days in the mountains” by Russian blogger Dmitry Panov.
In March 2023, Panov came to South Ossetia to hunt a brown bear and met with the President of the Republic, Alan Gagloev. More precisely, Gagloev met Panov at a hunting base in the national reserve and during dinner gave him his wristwatch. Gagloev and Panov were accompanied by the director of the reserve, Anatoly Bestaev, and another high-ranking official.
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There is much to suggest that President Gagloyev – an avid hunter – was well aware of Panov’s goals and approved of the hunt. The director of the reserve personally participated in it. The video posted by the blogger shows how the carcass of the bleeding bear is thrown off a hill, with a selfie taken, after which it is butchered.
It is not entirely clear who exactly shot the animal. In the video, a local hunter who accompanied Panov claims that it was he who shot it, which allegedly tried to attack him.
It is not known how many such cases have occurred in the South Ossetian reserve during the year of Gagloev’s presidency, given that not all hunting enthusiasts post videos on the internet. But they are trying to hush up the current scandal. The state media did not say a word about this story. Both local ecologists and public activists are silent.
An exception was the non-governmental organization Green Alania, which sent a request to the Prosecutor General’s Office asking for a legal assessment of the blogger’s actions. Even in this case, the head of the organization, Zalina Gabaity, is trying in every possible way to switch attention to the Russian video blogger, carefully avoiding any mention of the president. Some explain this by the fact that Gabaity is a supporter of the current president and supported Alan Gagloev during his election campaign.
Whether the Prosecutor General’s Office responded to the request is still unknown. The poaching of the bear violated several articles of the criminal code at once.
Licenses for shooting any animal in South Ossetia are issued by the Committee on Ecology and Nature Management. Whether there was such a license in this case remains to be seen. But it is clear that a new type of business is starting to flourish in South Ossetia — poaching tourism. And President Gagloev personally patronizes it.
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