Can the official population estimates of wild animals in Russia be trusted?

There is much discussion about whether the official information on the current population of wild animals in the Russian Taiga can be trusted. Here it is, our vast nature, how to count every beast, and do officials really engage in this work?

I dedicated more than ten years of my life to researching environmental problems. I traveled across the Russian Taiga from end to end, quarreled with loggers, and even argued with governors! I explained to ministers about the existing and successfully used technologies for protecting wild animals instead of senseless killing. Hardly anyone understood us, but despite everything, there were and still are positive changes! Some problems were solved, especially if it became profitable for the management system itself.

But the wild animal population in the country has always been a lie and still remains so! This is my personal opinion, based on years of experience studying the issues of the Russian Taiga. Today, it is profitable for commercial hunters to provide inflated information about the number of animals, just as it is profitable for officials themselves, who actively write off budget funds for the "fight" against the same wolves or bears. Or those who earn good money from the development and prosperity of the sports hunting industry.

It's simple logic! Isn't it? The more wild animals there are, the more you can kill them. And if money is paid not only by ordinary hunters but also by "trophy hunters" from all over the world, why announce low animal numbers in this case? It's better to write on paper: "Plenty! So many! Enough for a hundred years, we personally counted them!"

Honestly, I believe that the actual number of wild animals in our country is nothing more than bureaucratic deceit, without any real foundation. Moreover, Russian citizens know very little about how animal counts are conducted!

I will quote my text from our appeal to the Russian Government on the need to protect wolves:

"There is no proper accounting of the wolf population in the country. Counts are conducted by indirect methods: from the words of game reserve workers or hunters; by the number of wolves killed; by estimated habitat capacity based on food resources, and so on. Data is even derived from 'the number of wolf attacks on domestic animals,' recorded from citizen complaints and media reports, in the quantitative accounting of the wolf population.

Migrations and the nomadic lifestyle of packs are not properly considered. As a result, the same pack is counted two or three times in two or three regions. This leads to an overestimation of the wolf population by approximately two to three times."

This is approximately how things stand with counting animal populations: everything depends on the words of the same game reserve workers, who have a direct interest in high wild animal population figures.

In recent years, when regions shifted to an "economic course" for developing the paid hunting industry, the interest in "desired figures" has grown exponentially. Now, this very industry generates much more money than ever before.

In Russia, there are government structures dealing with hunting and game management. There is also statistics. Official ones. Unofficial ones do not exist: it's too difficult to account for. Only opinions and expert estimates are available. And the statistics indeed state that the population of animals and birds in the Russian Taiga is not just stable but slowly growing. The population of "game," that is, animals and birds as objects for hunting.

This is pleasing, of course! At first glance. This is what my readers constantly write to me about. Well, it should be pleasing — the number of animals and birds is a kind of indicator of the health of the Russian Taiga. A living, healthy Taiga means its population grows, with food to eat and places to live.

The first and main question is: how objective is such rosy statistics? I wrote about this in my early books, which I worked on during my studies of forest destruction in Russia.

Let's once again quote the FSUE "Centrohotkontrol" material "State of Hunting Resources in the Russian Federation in 2008–2013":

"According to state monitoring data for 2012–2013, the otter population in Russia exceeded 100,000 individuals. Compared to the long-term average, the otter population 'increased' by more than 20,000 individuals. The sharp increase in individuals of this species is due to unreliable information submitted to the authorized body of the Tomsk region by a game reserve user, who defined an excessively high population. Without these erroneous data, the otter population in Russia remains stable and amounts to 80,000–85,000 individuals.

The total wolf population in Russia, according to state monitoring data, was estimated at 44,400 individuals in 2013, which is more than 13,000 individuals lower than the previous year. The decrease in the wolf population primarily occurred due to corrections made in 2013 to the 2012 assessment by the authorized body of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), which revised the wolf population estimate from 10,700 individuals to 2,600 individuals."

In two regions, the data turned out to be lies! Otters were "multiplied" by 20%, and wolves by 25%! And this is statistical data announced more than ten years ago.

The fact that the government agency itself investigates and admits that inflated population estimates are submitted to them is good. The bad thing is that this characterizes the general approach to the matter in the country's government bodies.

What happened in these cases? I suppose that the central authorities noticed unrealistically inflated animal numbers. Like, do you think we are complete fools? How do you suddenly have 10,000 animals when last year there were not even a thousand? Were they imported from America or fell from the Moon? Those who do not blatantly inflate population figures in pursuit of good reports and work bonuses simply go unnoticed. Thus, the population of animals and birds in the Russian Taiga "grows"... according to statistics! And the local population, the elders, say: "There are few animals left in the Taiga!" But does their private opinion matter against government statistics?!

I, for one, can say this: I trust the elders in the villages more than the officials in the offices. Unfortunately.

The second question is not just about population numbers.

Since the late 20th century, from the 1990s, the character of the animal and bird populations in the Russian Taiga has also changed. The number of hunting bases and reserves has sharply increased and continues to grow. The commercial sector of sports hunting. From a situation where such commercial activity practically did not exist to a significant, quite "profitable" market segment. Of course, the revenues here are not as high as in industrial logging. But still quite substantial. And some animals are bred and artificially raised. That is, these are no longer entirely "wild" animals. Like ducks in Moscow ponds or squirrels in Moscow parks. They do not fear humans and are fed by them. Although they seem to live freely, they have already become quite "humanized." A significant nuance is that they are included in the reports but live on the territories of individual game reserves. They are not fully integrated into the natural environment.

On February 20, 2020, Russia officially adopted the "On Enclosure Hunting" law, which legalized sports and recreational hunting in semi-wild conditions, i.e., in specially fenced territories — enclosures. Animals are raised for outright killings, imitating a natural habitat in these vast fenced territories, and then licenses are sold to hunters to shoot the animals.

So now, on the one hand, there is "breeding" of commercially valuable animal species within hunting grounds, and on the other, the slaughter and mixing of truly wild populations. In simple terms: wild ones are killed off, and "semi-domesticated" ones are brought in for further killings! Statistically, "everything is fine, the population is stable," but in reality, ecosystems lose the genome of truly wild animals, and the animals themselves lack the necessary survival skills in the wild. All vital processes of the transfer and circulation of living species in the biogeocoenoses of the Russian Taiga are disrupted!

And if animals are in enclosures (on vast fenced territories) under the new law, they are entirely private property: they can be killed without quotas and restrictions all year round! This was done to satisfy the demand from hunters, ensuring a continuous stream of clients for animal killings.

In the modern world, "sports hunting" increasingly becomes "sports killing" in its pure form. Gamekeepers separate, for example, a bull from the herd and drive it towards the hunter for a shot. The only difference is that it's not a familiar "cow from Prostokvashino," but an elk or a red deer. There is no tracking of a real wild animal. There hasn't been a need for its hide or meat for a long time. Only the desire to kill remains. Such a modern "hunter" satisfies their passion for killing.

As a result, the picture is not as rosy as "on paper." Official statistics can only be trusted with great caution!

If I were to ask officials announcing animal population numbers, I would ask the following questions:

1. How many times have the same packs of wolves or herds of deer been counted as they migrate between different regions?

   
   

2. To what extent is there a personal interest of merchants and officials in high animal population figures amid the rapidly growing sports hunting industry? And who verifies the data from the same game users who submit their observations on how many animals exist in the Russian Taiga "upstairs"?

   
   
3. How many of the provided animal populations are genuinely WILD individuals, and how many have been bred as semi-domesticated animals for future slaughter? A deer included in the biogeocoenoses of the Russian Taiga and providing critical ecosystem services is not at all equal to a deer raised on compound feed at a game reserve for future slaughter!

I travel through regions, talk to people. The elders, also hunters but old-timers who love nature and protected it during the Soviet years, never touched an extra animal. They say: "There are few animals left! Almost none at all. They breed them in private game reserves, but there are no real wild ones left. They were the first to be killed."

I trust the elders! And I have immense respect for the old-timers of the Russian Taiga.

But I don't trust officials and merchants profiting from the killing of wild animals under the guise of "sports killing." Nor do I trust those who go to shoot live targets.

© PAVEL PASHKOV