Taymyr expects reindeer population increase

Source: www.regnum.ru/news/558359.html
12 December 2005

The newspaper the Taymyr Telegraph has reported that the total number of reindeer in Taymyr is presently about 52,500. According to Valeriy Kyzylchakov, head of Department of Traditional Livelihoods, 46,200 head were registered in the district by 1 January 2005.

“For this year an increase of the livestock by 6-7 thousand is expected,” he noted. “An increase like this has not been seen for a long time. Reindeer are now being rounded up, and the exact number of livestock will be known by the middle of January 2006.”

In the opinion of experts, hunting of wild reindeer in 2005 was successful. On the account of the Taymyrskiy enterprise 5,200 deer were taken compared to 4,200 in 2004. Many enterprises have yet not reported their data. It is calculated that during the autumn of 2005 wolves killed about 400 reindeer. One attempt to hunt animals by helicopter has not given results. The newspaper Taymyr writes that Svetlana Valieva, the deputy head of the settlement Khantayskoe Ozero, ,addressed a request to the head of the Department on Regional National Policy and Development of Northern Indigenous Peoples, asking for help in tackling the wolf problem, “even in the form of cartridges and gasoline, to become independent in fighting the predators”.