Sale of rare animals equated to child pornography

The Ministry of Environment proposes to block, without a court decision, websites that publish ads for the sale of rare animals. There will be the same mechanism as for sites with child porn. Sergey Donskoy, the Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology, said that the Ministry, together with Roskomnadzor, is preparing the necessary amendments to the law On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection.

“I have given instructions, the preparation of the bill is underway. This problem is not so simple, we invited representatives of Roskomnadzor, security officials, tried to find solutions. We must have time before the start of the Year of Ecology, 2017, ”said the Minister.

So far there is no certainty which agency will look for rare animals on the Internet: “These are purely technical things. In Roskomnadzor they are technically ready to take it upon themselves, if there are exact formulations what to look for. On the other hand, Rosprirodnadzor could also deal with this. There is no final decision on this. ”
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Now on the Internet you can find hundreds of ads for the sale of rare animals: for example, wild kittens of a tiger, lion, cheetah, leopard, jaguar or cougars are offered for 110-400 thousand rubles, young Nile crocodiles - for 30 thousand rubles, kangaroos - for 90 -150 thousand rubles, medium-sized monkeys - for 150-200 thousand rubles, polar fox puppies - for 35-50 thousand rubles, bear cubs - for 70 thousand rubles, adult bears - up to 180 thousand rubles.

At the same time, caring for a wild animal is almost the same as raising an ordinary cat or dog: “For four months to them. To eat a leopard an adult kilogram will be three per day, well, a tiger, of course, is five kilograms. What? But don’t give meat, beef, poultry, pork, ”one of the vendors told Izvestia. - It is not necessary to heat, they are cold-resistant, just put a wooden house like a dog. While small, you need to play with them, arms and legs can bite, they play like that. Then they grow up, become calm. ”

According to Part 1 of Art. 258.1 of the Criminal Code "Illegal extraction, maintenance, acquisition, storage, transportation, shipment and sale of highly valuable wild animals" is punishable by compulsory labor for up to 480 hours, correctional labor for up to two years, forced labor or imprisonment for three years with a fine of up to 1 million rubles