Russia has legalised the hunting of polar bears for the first time in more than half a century, a move that critics say will put further pressure on the endangered mammal.
Roman Kopin, the governor of Russia's remote Chukotka region, signed a decree allowing the area's indigenous people to hunt and kill 29 polar bears each year, including 19 females.

Russian wildlife campaigners condemned the move, saying the polar bear was already threatened by a shrinking habitat and rampant poaching.

Varvara Semonova, a wildlife campaigner, said the decision would "threaten the survival of the polar bear in the Russian Arctic and will have not only ecological but serious social and political consequences for us."

The authorities defended the partial lifting of the ban, arguing that hunting polar bears for their meat and their fur was a traditional part of local Chukchi culture in the Russian Arctic. They said hunters would not be allowed to export bear skins or to sell bear meat commercially.

Russia's decision to allow polar bear hunting for the first time since the Soviet Union banned the practice in 1957 was made possible after the Kremlin signed a treaty with the United States governing both countries' polar bear populations on either side of the Bering Strait.

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ear...ar-bear-hunting.html

How long do I need to study or train to become a "wildlife campaigner"?

You don't you just piss and moan about any type of hunting wearing furs ect and you are one.

OK, so where is the worldwide media outrage against the Russian government? Because the polar bear is still listed as a "vulnerable" animal by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

If the US announced such a lift, I have little doubt that this country would be flamed by the media from every corner of the globe. Not to mention every kooky "animal rights" group at home and abroad.

One of my very few really good decisions was to hunt the legendary Bear before country went completely cow shit.

No polar bear hunting here, says Russia
April 15 2011 at 09:36am



Moscow - Russia will not allow any polar bear hunting in its far north, despite agreeing a quota of 29 bears with the United States, the government said in a statement posted on Thursday on its website.

“A decision has been taken on the government level that Russia will not be using its quota,” said the statement on the personal website of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who has taken the polar bear under his personal protection.

Last month, the Chukotka governor approved a quota previously agreed by a Russian-US commission to allow native inhabitants of Russia's far northern Chukotka region and US state of Alaska to kill 29 endangered polar bears each, including 19 females.

But the statement said that the government had not given the natural resources ministry the powers to hand out hunting permits for polar bears, effectively prolonging the ban on killing them.

Putin's website has sections devoted to four endangered mammals he has taken under “personal control”, including the polar bear. Last year he went on an expedition to tag the bears on the far northern island of Alexandra Land.

Hunting polar bears has been forbidden in Russia since 1957, but their dwindling population still falls victim to poaching, which experts say is hard to control and kills at least 30 animals yearly. - Sapa-AFP

PETA will be complaining