Thursday, March 06, 2008

Never elect hunter President - bad for wildlife

I have blogged about Bulgarian President more than a year ago in my post Don't vote for Georgi Parvanov. Below, I am translating from today's Netinfo post without commenting.

Struma newspaper: Parvanov went hunting the next day after train tragedy
Struma, a local newspaper based in the city of Blagoevgrad, stirred a controversy by reporting yesterday that President Parvanov took part in a wolfhunt on March 1 - the next day after nine people died in a fire on the train Sofia - Kardam.
The hunt was organized by forest rangers from the town of Simitli...
The President allegedly killed only a fox. He arrived at DiMario hotel in Simitly at 5.30 AM on March 1. However, National Security Agency personnel cut off and guarded the hotel from the previous day, Feb. 29...
The President's press center reacted today by announcing that "President Georgi Parvanov hasn't taken part in any hunt gatherings although on March 1 he was in the mountain near the town of Simitli"...
Struma reporters were advised by hunters from Simitli to keep quiet...
Commenting the controversy, Petar Yankov from the Bulgarian Society for Protection of Birds stated that the open season for water birds in Bulgaria has been prolonged twice because of the President. In both cases, this happened at 7 PM on Fridays - Feb. 1 and 8, respectively. The permission for prolongation was granted in violation of Bulgarian and European laws by the Chairman of the State Forest Agency and the Ministry of Environment and Water.
Bulgarian Society for Protection of Birds appealed the permission in the Supreme Administrative Court. "This bad practice must be terminated. It brutally uses legal loopholes," Yankov wrote. According to him, open season could be prolonged only to control epidemic or damages caused by the birds, and nothing of the kind was happening in the present case."

Update: The following quote is from a Dec. 4, 2008 post at the Novinite site:
"Bulgaria President Shot Protected Wild Animal During Uzbekistan Visit
During his visit to Uzbekistan in early November, the Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov had shot a wild mountain goat, the "arhar" - a protected animal, registered in the endangered species "Red Book", the internet news site Fergana.Ru, registered and published in Moscow, reported on Tuesday."
The hunt took place in a natural park where all shooting was prohibited. The Latin name of the animal in question is Ovis ammon. You can read more details at the Fergana site.

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