Dear mountain hunters and travelers! The Club of Mountain Hunters initiates the new way of mountain trophy collecting.
Hunting for several hunting species in definite countries is prohibited according these countries laws. In Russia hunting for a Putoran snow sheep, Altai argali and a Bezoar ibex are illegal. China totally closed mountain hunts for foreigners. There are some restrictions for hunting in Kazakhstan.
Each hunter has his own motivation when planning where and for what to hunt. We feel the lure of new impressions, new countries and hunting lands, traditions and the culture of people, living in places where we haven't been before. The trophy isn’t the only goal because we choose the definite destination. It just stimulates the hunters when we think over where to movу. The hunters who collect trophies and account them according different rating rules of international hunting clubs, it's a chance to close the new position and to get points. The common demand of all hunting clubs for the trophy registration is to provide the information about the outfitter who organized the trip and pictures of the hunter with the trophy. We have to note such economical aspect of trophy hunting and eco-tourist that these kinds of activity attract investment to the regions, create new jobs for the locals and new infrastructure. It stimulates the row of process which have the beneficial effects to the economy of the region and its social life. It’s very actual for the remote areas where the mountain ungulates habitat.
This situation has served as an impetus for the idea’s birth to develop the new rules how to register the PHOTO TROPHY of the animal if the hunting for this species is prohibited. Taking into account the reasons mentioned above, the photo hunting is similar to the classical hunt. To organize the trip, to find the trophy and to approach it the distance which allows to make high quality picture is also as hard as to do when hunt with the rifle for emotional and physical reasons. This initiative will allow the hunters to visit the regions where they are not going to fly because there is not the possibility to take a trophy.
The CMH will develop the regulation on the terms of photo trophy registration and we publish it in our magazine and the site.
I would like to draw the attention of readers and the heads of the relevant state bodies to such a moment. There are lots of positive examples how the right state regulation helps to decide questions concerning the protection of rare wild species. Pakistan is the most typical example. The markhor population was on the verge of extinction there. The locals didn’t any reasons to protect animals and killed them for food. There were not any limits for them how many animals they killed and what age. The international hunting community together with the Pakistan authority and the representatives of the natives created a stimulus package to limit the usage of that resource and to build the rules how to stimulate people to protect the markhors. The possibility to organize hunting trips for foreign hunters became the income for people and helped to protect the wild goats. The average cost of the hunting tour for a markhor is about 120K $. The 70% form that sum comes to the indigenous tribes what is the essential and stable income source for their budgets. The result of that set of measures, taken by the CITIES Convention which allows to export the limited number of those trophies, Pakistan authority and the rules of tribes is that these animals are no longer considered an endangered species. It's a perfect example how the hunters have helped to safe and to increase the number of animal’s population in Pakistan.
We also have to look for and to initiate any processes which can stimulate economy in the remote areas of our country. We are lucky to have the unique hunting resource and have to use reasonable and to develop it. Hunting is the tool to attract serious investments for the protection of rare species. The complete ban and lack of sufficient funding for protective actions are not the effective way to save the population as it's been proved already. The Illegal hunting and poaching of different levels take place in all regions and we know about such cases. The scientist and the game-biologists know that Putoran snow sheep population has a significant number of individuals and the limited trophy hunting for old males won’t damage it. It's easy to account. I’m sure that the price for the hunting permit for this rare sheep on the open auction won't be less than 50K$. I can’t predict the final cost but it’d be 100K$. Five hunting licenses per a year won’t damage the sheep population but the State gets the funds to prove the most effective protective program. At today's rate, this is a significant amount. To what level should the oil price fall, that we start to look for other source of investment and to use other mechanisms to stimulate economy process in hunting? It's time to think about it.
