Police have uncovered more than 7,000 instances of environmental law violations in the first four months of this year. This was announced today at a Ministry of Internal Affairs briefing.
According to polisia.kz, authorities seized from illegal circulation 15,200 metres of prohibited fishing nets, 9 tonnes of fish and fish products, approximately 3,500 saiga antelope horns, 135 hunting weapons, and 81 cubic metres of illegally harvested timber.
Meanwhile, it has been reported that an operation named "Bekire" is being conducted in the Ural-Caspian basin. In a house in the settlement of Tupkaragan District, Mangystau Region, police seized 13 sturgeon fish with a total weight of 72 kg.
In Atyrau Region, during a patrol on the Ural River coast, suspects were found with 30 sturgeon and carp. It is reported that after seizure, the fish were handed over to the "Ural-Atyrau Sturgeon Fish Farm".
Furthermore, law enforcement officials spoke about the interim results of a campaign to buy back illegally held firearms from the public. Kazakh citizens have already handed over 422 weapons to internal affairs bodies.
Recall that in March, the Border Service Department of the National Security Committee of the Zhetysu region detained three Kazakh citizens in the border zone attempting to export 1,382 saiga horns. The damage to the state was estimated at more than 3.5 billion tenge. Incidentally, according to our data, one horn on the black market costs around $2,000.
Also earlier, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev announced that he would reverse the decision and ban the so-called "removal" of the saiga population, calling them symbols of the Kazakh steppe.
Later, on the website "Open NPA", the Committee of Forestry and Wildlife proposed amendments to the rules for providing the public service "Issuance of a permit for the removal of animal species whose numbers are subject to regulation". This concerned the ban on shooting the steppe antelope.