Launched a fight against wolves in Russia

The president of the Sakha republic in the Russian Federation launched a war against wolves, after they killed thousands of reindeer and threatened the lives of people in many villages.

Wolves only prey on mountains and in dense forests. But recently the wolves appear on grasslands in the central Sakha republic to hunt reindeer. The number of cases of cattle attacked by wolves has increased over the past few months, but they have not attacked people, the BBC reported.

Sakha officials wanted the number of wolves in their country to drop from more than 3,500 to 500.

Sakha President Yegor Borisov heard a lot of complaints from people when he visited villages in the central region. So he announced that the government will launch a war against wolves from January 15. During this war, which lasts for three months, hunters will fire wolves on the grasslands and near the villages. Officials will award 100,000 rubles ($ 3,280) to those who kill the most wolves.

In addition to launching a war against wolves, officials also decided to allow people to hunt wolves for the whole year, instead of just a few months as before. Their goal is to reduce the number of wolves from over 3,500 today to 500.

Russian media quoted experts as saying that the scarcity of hares on the mountain was the reason why wolves were forced to get close to their habitat for reindeer.

Sakha Agriculture Ministry announced that the wolf attacked 16,111 reindeer in 2012 - an increase of 4.3% compared to 2011. The value of 16,111 reindeer amounted to more than 150 million rubles (5 million USD) because of the price of each I am about 10,000 rubles. Besides, wolf also killed 314 cattle.

According to officials, last year hunters killed 730 wolves.