Entrepreneur and hunter Batyr Seikenov published a video on social media in which he claims that a kind of invitation for a licensed saiga hunt is "doing the rounds" in Europe.
As evidence, Seikenov shows a document in German, which he says was sent to him by friends from Germany. The editorial board of FBRK has translated the text of the invitation.
The document states that the saiga has been a hunting trophy for many years, and that the population of the steppe antelope has now recovered, meaning that for the first time, the purchase of a hunting licence is available to foreigners.
It is reported that the hunting season will take place from September to November. The hunting location is 800 km from the city of Aktau, and the journey there from the city will take about 10-12 hours.
The area of the hunting grounds is about 500 thousand hectares. It is also noted that other types of hunting can allegedly be organised in this area.
The so-called "voucher" is a package tour for three people, including 7 nights, 5 hunting days, transfer, accommodation, hunting excursions and so on. The price of the voucher, including all expenses, is €7990 (about 4.3 million tenge).
Batyr Seikenov wonders why local authorities, by selling licences to foreigners, intend to make money from hunting, while for Kazakh citizens the shooting of saiga is illegal.
According to the hunter, he contacted the Ministry of Ecology to obtain relevant comments and even called Minister Nysanbayev, but no one got in touch with Seikenov.
It is worth noting that the document, which the hunter calls a licence in his statement, is nevertheless a type of offer (a proposal to purchase a product or service) and is not an official confirmation of hunting licensing.
However, everyone knows there is no smoke without fire. In this regard, the editorial board of FBRK has in turn sent an official request to the Ministry of Ecology asking them to clarify the situation.
Let us recall that in July 2023, the West Kazakhstan Agrarian and Technical University named after Zhangir Khan presented to the Ministry of Ecology the so-called biological justification for "saiga population management", in which our editorial board found numerous fundamental contradictions.
In October 2023, it became known that the Ministry of Ecology had begun hiring hunters to shoot saigas in the West Kazakhstan Region. The cost of the service averaged 4,000 tenge per head of killed saiga.
At the beginning of November of the same year, the ministry established the period of permitted hunting for saigas, regardless of their sex, age and habitat: from 1 October to 15 November.
In February 2024, it became known that by 2025 the ministry plans to legalise the export of saiga horns abroad. Incidentally, according to our data, one horn on the black market costs about $2,000.
In April, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev announced that he would cancel the Ministry of Ecology's decision to shoot saigas and ban the so-called "removal" of the saiga population, calling them symbols of the Kazakh steppe.
At the beginning of August, farmers in the West Kazakhstan Region reported a shortage of fodder, which could lead to livestock deaths. According to them, the reason for this was drought and an increase in the saiga population. A state of emergency was declared in two districts of the region.