More than 1,000 carcasses of wild reindeer found in a river in the north of the Krasnoyarsk Territory

The prosecutor's office launched an investigation

About 1.2 thousand carcasses of dead wild reindeer were found in the Khatanga River in Taimyr in the north of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. This was reported to journalists in the prosecutor's office of the region.

"As of August 11, almost 700 carcasses were lifted from the river and stored away from the settlement, about 500 carcasses remain in the shallow part of the river. Work to remove them from the water body continues," the ministry said. Four carcasses with gunshot wounds were also found. Earlier, the Ministry of Internal Affairs reported the discovery of 56 deer carcasses, two of them had gunshot wounds. The department opened a criminal case on the fact of illegal hunting.

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The prosecutor's office launched an investigation into the mass death of wild reindeer. The cause of death of animals is the ingress of water into the lungs. Meanwhile, during the audit, the department will assess the relationship between illegal hunting and the death of animals. A study will also be conducted to determine whether they have dangerous diseases. “There is a version here, which, like others, will be verified that the deer came from different habitats, because somewhere there were already partially decomposed remains. And they settled in shallow water. such a process took place when they crossed the water body," the representative of the prosecutor's office added.

In the Krasnoyarsk Territory, there are no recent data on the population of wild reindeer. The latest data refer to 2014, a new aerial survey is being carried out in 2021. As previously reported by experts, the deer population in Taimyr is under threat of extinction due to poachers, an increase in the number of wolves and climate change.