A total of sixty-two non-governmental organizations submitted an initiative for the immediate introduction of a moratorium on hunting. These non-governmental organizations requested an urgent response from the competent Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management and personally from Minister Aleksandar Stijović in order to completely ban hunting in Montenegro as soon as possible.
After yesterday's event, the initial appearance of two mosques in Berane, and then later in the day and the killing of their mother, the initiators of the initiative believe that this case is one in a series that confirms that the issue of poaching has been completely ignored in the field of hunting until now.
They believe that insufficient inspection capacity and lack of harmonization of regulations governing the area have resulted in the absence of enforcement of a penal policy for perpetrators of crimes against nature.
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"We remind you of some of the examples that have come under public scrutiny, such as the decapitated bear that was driven on the hood in the streets of Podgorica, then the bear killed in the Tara canyon, the bear killed in Mala Rijeka, two griffon vultures killed with satellite transmitters from Croatia ( Perun and Fojiška), pelicans and great egrets as well as other raptors that died as a result of being wounded, recent cases of roe deer poaching on Piva and Golija, etc., states their initiative.
They said that the practice of illegal hunting of protected species has been present in Montenegro for a long time, but also that numerous cases of killing wild animals in a way that the law recognizes as a criminal offense, "show that poachers have long been unafraid to shoot everything they can is found on the road", despite the fact that the Criminal Code prescribes in Chapter XXV a series of criminal offenses aimed at protecting wild fauna in Montenegro.
"An independent study, carried out in 2010 as part of the project for the protection of the Adriatic migratory route, which compared hunting practices in the Balkan countries, from Slovenia to Albania, showed a very bad situation in Montenegro with an average score of 1,55 (out of a possible 5 points ). Montenegrin hunting received an absolutely negative assessment in terms of hunting control, monitoring the quantity of animals shot, the length of the hunting season, hunting during the stage of reproduction and migration, impact on endangered species, illegal hunting/poaching," the non-governmental organizations announced.
In the period from 2013 to 2018, a total of 127 reports were processed before the prosecutor's offices of Montenegro for the criminal acts of killing and torturing animals and destroying their habitat, and as many as 84 reports were dismissed. Among other things, a measure of mandatory psychiatric treatment at liberty was imposed on one person for a criminal offense, and an educational measure of enhanced supervision was imposed on one minor.
There is also, as they say, a "dark number" of environmental offenses (non-evident criminal offenses) due to the neglect of detection and prosecution of offences.
They are of the opinion that it is too late to react when the problem is found in the courtroom and that activities should be carried out for the prevention of environmental crime.
The initiators of the initiative believe that a moratorium on hunting of all species should be established for a period of at least five years in order to:
"• carried out an effective legislative and institutional reform of hunting (revision of the list of protected species, revision of hunting species and duration of hunting seasons);
• organized adequate monitoring, and above all created a zero status of game in the hunting grounds by professional and credible institutions with the aim of obtaining data on the actual number of populations;
• strengthened capacities of the hunting inspection, which in our experience does not perform preventive actions, and even less deals with the problem of poaching;
• Put the Game Warden/Inspection Service under the direct supervision/control of the Ministry and make it completely independent from the Hunting Association.
• carried out a thorough restructuring of hunting associations and societies, whose game wardens are not up to the task and are not able to control the hunting grounds."
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