Forced photomodels. Saving animals from abuse by street photographers

In 2018 an eagle fell on me. Well, almost on me. I was drinking coffee in the courtyard of one of the recreation centers of Zaliznyi Port, chatting with my friends. And then –– boom! –– a sort of colorful blanket fell from above with a crash. I ran up to it saw a huge bird of prey. It immediately tried to get away, just like a chicken, and hided in the grass in the narrow passage between the building and the outer fence. The predator was sitting there, and I tried not to let anyone near the passage. At first, I did not know what to do, but I had the telephone number of my friend Oleh Dudkin, a member of Ukrainian Society for the Protection of Birds. Oleg for sure did know the solution. He is well known in these parts, he has organized multiple environmental projects within the area. Therefore, stuff of National Nature Park “Biloberezhzhya Svyatoslava” came to Oleh’s call and took the bird with them.

Viktor Musienko, the Deputy Director of the park, together with his colleague caught the bird with a plain and simple checkered bag and took it to the Mykolaev zoo.

There is a long way from Zaliznyi Port to Mykolaev, besides, and it was the end of the day – we caught an eagle in the late afternoon. But we were awaited in Mykolaev waited despite it being Friday night. A friend of all animals and birds, the zoo director Vladimir Topchy ordered a team of specialists to accommodate the bird and provide it with the necessary assistance. The eagle was weak and initially refused to eat. But it quickly recovered and started eating. It lived in a veterinary clinic for a while, then moved to quarantine, and after that – to the bird department of the zoo for permanent residence.

I learned what happened next from a colleague from Mykolaev Tetyana Chychkaliuk. The bird turned out to be a young steppe eagle. A survey by zoo specialists showed that the eagle was weak, very thin, with damaged tail wings. It was wary but friendly, and ate well both meat and fish. It let the doctors in. Zoo specialists immediately started a rehabilitation program for the bird, but it was obvious that it could not be released into the wild – it was not adapted to independent life. Therefore, it will keep living in the zoo, participating in a program of preservation of the gene pool of this rare species – steppe eagles are listed in the Red Book of Ukraine.

It is pleasantly surprising that there are so many people who are sensitive to nature and who have organized a whole campaign to save a rare bird. Otherwise, the poor eagle just would not survive. This could be the end of the story, but a curious investigator may wonder: where did the bird come from?

Veterinarians found traces of fetters on the eagle’s paws. This observation pointed to the suggestion that it ran away from street (beach) photographers who mercilessly exploit animals for the sake of earning money. We all came across to these clingy youngsters offering to be captured carrying a bird, a monkey, or even a crocodile in our hands for a fee. This is illegal (it violates the law of Ukraine “On the protection of animal from ill-treatment ” and –– most importantly –– makes animals suffer.

What to do when seeing a photographer with a wild animal on the street

“Photographing with wild animals, the so-called “contact zoos ” and using animals in circuses, especially the travelling ones, is a shameful phenomenon that is still widespread in different cities of Ukraine,” –– says ecologist Natalia Atamas. –– What should animal rights activists do in such situations? To begin with, one should understand that trying to save a wild animal from an unscrupulous photographer implies a lot of fuss and red tape activity. This can take from a few hours to several days. It is necessary to act depending on the situation.”

Situation № 1. There are no signs of animal abuse. Call 102 and wait for the police squad to arrive. Make sure that the police officers check whether the photographer has:

– passport or any other identity document;

– veterinary documents for the animal (based on Clause 3.11.3 “Procedure for keeping and breeding wild animals that are in captivity or semi-free conditions”);

– documents certifying ownership of a wild animal (based on Clause 3.1 of the same Procedure);

– permission from the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources (Ministry of Natural Resources) to keep a wild animal in captivity (based on Article 8 of the law “On the protection of animals from ill-treatment”);

– documents confirming the right to business activity – a license or registration certificate.

The absence of any of these documents is a reason to draw up a protocol in the nearest Regional Department of the National Police, where the violator should be taken.

In reality, however, this is not always possible, because the police do not know how to determine what kind of animal it is, whether it is wild or is listed in Red Book and so on. This should be done by employees of the State Environmental Inspectorate (SEI). By the way, the SEI deals specifically with wild animals, while the State Food and Consumer Service deals with pigeons, horses and other livestock animals. Therefore, the SEI inspectors should also be called immediately. They should also come and draw up their own protocol. But this, most likely, will not happen, because, unlike police officers, they are not mobile enough and often do not have their own transport. Therefore, it is better to turn to the SEI for joining the hunting of hard-hearted photographers in advance and in case these photographers are constantly and regularly keep their activity at some particular location. In such case an appeal can be sent to the SEI with a request to conduct an extraordinary check of compliance with environmental legislation (a sample request-appeal prepared by Natalia is placed at the end of the article).

Attention! The request must contain the words “unscheduled inspection” and a paragraph that states the violation of one’s constitutional rights. Otherwise, there is a high chance of getting a formal reply. This letter must either be sent by registered mail with a notification of delivery, or drive up to the Environmental Inspectorate and register it in the office.

Ideally, apart from the police and the environmental inspector, journalists should also come to the location where photo-exploiters act. This will properly stimulate all the participants of the event.

In case the SEI inspectors do not arrive, the process will be harder. In our practice, the police officers are not very well versed in the norms of laws that regulate the commercial use of wild animals. If there are no documents for birds of prey, monkeys, and so on, they become the property of the community and must go to shelters or a zoo for “temporary maintenance”. But the police tend to avoid from getting involved in the process of the confiscation of an animal, as it is extremely delicate due to clearly not being strictly regulated by law.

Monkeys on Khreshchatyk

Situation № 2. There are signs of Cruelty to the animal: artificially colored feathers, dragging on a chain, bright light (especially dangerous for owls, lemurs and other nocturnal animals), alcohol intoxication, the photographer stands with the animal all day without a break, and so on.

Ill-treatment is already 100% the competence of the National Police according to Article 89 of the Code of administrative offenses (“Animal abuse”), or Article 299 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. Also, according to Article 25 of the law on the protection of animals from ill-treatment, “when treating animals during sports, entertainment events, video and photo shoots, it is prohibited to cause them injuries, pain, mutilation, or death.”

All these articles of regulatory legal acts should be known and constantly voiced to the police, because they are often clueless. In addition, the process must be recorded, especially in the case of ill-treatment, as Article 299 of the Criminal Code requires rock-solid evidence.

Confidence is a big part of success. Stand next to the police and politely but persistently, with a straight face and an unwavering voice list all the points of all the articles of Laws of Ukraine and Codes violated by the photographer and under the influence of which he falls. There is a great chance, especially in case with birds, that they will simply give up the animal of their own will.

To the clarifying question of “Active Citizens” about the difficulty of achieving the arrival of the SEI representatives and/or the police, Natalia Atamas answered as follows: “The principle here is like this. A concerned citizen of the first level: calls the police and waits nearby, recollecting the points of laws and codes, the police does not arrive, the citizen calls again, waits, nothing changes, the person calls once more, then they run out of time to wait, they must go. Even this is very useful and not bad.

A concerned citizen of the second level: does exactly the same as the caring citizen of the first level, but then, on coming home, writes a letter to the State Environmental Inspectorate and sends it in a correct way. This way the second level brings a double of benefit.

A concerned citizen of the third level does all the same actions and, in addition, receives a letter from the SEI with a formal reply, continues to bombard them with letters, involves relatives and friends into this, finds a few “tagged” people on the Internet and asks them about the best way to proceed, finds the phone numbers of the SEI and makes an unscheduled check of the location happen. Then there are levels four, five, and so on.”

It’s interesting enough that the State Environmental Inspectorate itself on their FB page just encourages citizens not to remain indifferent to cases of animal cruelty and report them to the SEI: “The State Environmental Inspectorate of Ukraine asks citizens who have witnessed cruelty to wild animals or keeping such animals in inappropriate conditions to immediately report what they saw to the territorial or interregional territorial bodies of the State Environmental Inspectorate. It is the powers of the State Environmental Inspectorate of Ukraine and its territorial or interregional territorial bodies that include:

– regulation of the number of wild animals;

– maintenance and breeding of wild animals that are in captivity or in semi-free conditions;

– checking the availability of documents confirming the legality of the acquisition of wild animals, including those listed in the Red Book of Ukraine;

– checking the availability of permits for the maintenance and breeding of wild animals;

– checking the import into and export outside of Ukraine of objects of animal wildlife and tools for their extraction;

– protection of wild animals from abuse;

– verification of the legality of the acquisition of objects of animal wildlife into private ownership.

We should keep in mind that the preservation of lives of wild animals in captivity depends on each of us. To avoid losing precious time, the State Environmental Inspectorate or its territorial and interregional territorial bodies should be contacted as soon as possible. The state environmental Inspectorate hotline number: (044) 521-20-38.

Contacts of territorial bodies can be found here:  https://www.dei.gov.ua/posts/85 
Contacts of interregional territorial bodies: https://www.dei.gov.ua/posts/111»

We tried to get more information from the SEI through the comments below this post. Our questions were: “What should we do when we see photographers with animals?”, “How is this regulated by law?”, “Is this legislation flawless, or does it need to be improved?”, “Please tell us about the examples when it was possible to take animals away from street photographers and where the animals were transferred after that?”, but we have not received a response yet. Therefore, we turned to other sources to ask the same questions.

Volodymyr Buchko, Deputy Director of the Halych National Nature Park and chairman of the organization in Eco-Halych: Wildlife Rehab, claimed that over the past three years, eight white-tailed eagles, three long-legged buzzards, one eastern imperial eagle and one buzzard were transferred to the rehabilitation center that operates at the park. They were taken away from exploiters with cameras from Lviv, Transcarpathia (Shypit waterfall), Yaremche. It was a collaborative work of the SEI and the police under hard pressure from activists. Some animals were freed through the courts, and some were eventually given away voluntarily (under pressure from activists and the police). All birds are tame. That is, they are at high risk: on the one hand, they are not afraid of people. On the other hand, hunters consider birds of prey enemies and mercilessly shoot them. Because of this, it is impossible to let these birds go free. As an illustration of his story, Mr. Buchko cited a video showing an example of extracting birds from photographers and transferring these animals to a rehabilitation center.

Director of the Kyiv Ecological and Cultural Center Volodymyr Boreiko told “Active Citizens” about his considerable experience in dealing with the photographers, who exploit animals, in the capital, including his cooperation with the SEI and the police. “During our raids, we took out two crocodiles, nine snakes, a dozen of birds of prey and many turtles. The were transferred to the zoo.”

Natalia Atamas compiled a useful instruction. However, I would add something: a reference to Article 88-1 of the Administrative Code, which regulates the work of the Environmental Inspectorate in relation to animals which do not have documents. That is, the environmental inspectors should be called on the basis of this particular article, with the indication that there are no documents for animals. Another thing to be kept in mind is Article 90 of the Administrative Code, which concerns animals, listed in the Red Book. And finally, hunting heartless photographers can be done without an unscheduled check – it can be a simple raid (raid check).

Indeed, it is extremeely difficult to deal with these animal abusers. They often have murky documents: for example, issued by Skazka Zoo in Yalta, located in the occupied Crimea, which makes it barely possible to verify the authenticity of such papers. That is, without a law that clearly states “Wild animals must not be used for photographing”, no changes will take place.

For the current convocation of the parliament, animal rights activists have prepared a draft law No. 6598 “On amendments to certain legislative acts of Ukraine (regarding the implementation of the provisions of certain international agreements and EU directives in the field of animal and plant protection)”. It was even considered in the session hall, but one single vote was missing. As soon as a new parliament is elected and relevant committees are formed, animal rights activists and journalists will continue to work on the adoption of a modern animal protection law.

Oleh Lystopad

Read also “What will happen to protected areas during a land reform?”

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     Я, _________ПІБ_______________________________________________, звертаюсь до Вас з питання використання диких тварин з комерційною метою – фотографування у м. ___________. 
      Мені стало відомо, що на вулиці __________________(вкажіть точну адресу ) невідомі особи пропонують послуги фотографування з ___________________________. (мавпами, орлом тощо). Таке використання диких тварин є прямим порушенням Закону України «Про захист тварин від жорстокого поводження» та Наказу Міністерства екології та природних ресурсів України № 429 «Порядок утримання та розведення диких тварин, які перебувають у стані неволі або в напіввільних умовах».
      Тому вважаю, що має місце порушення статті 50 Конституції України та порушення моїх конституційних прав на безпечне довкілля та погіршення стану природного навколишнього середовища.
     Акцентую Вашу увагу на тому, що деякі дикі тварин є об’єктами міжнародної конвенції СІТЕС – «Конвенція про міжнародну торгівлю видами дикої фауни і флори, що перебувають під загрозою зникнення», яку ратифікувала Україна у 2000 році. Тому утримання цих тварин регламентується не тільки українським, а й міжнародним законодавством.
      Відповідно від вище викладеного прошу Вас провести позапланову перевірку та встановити:
1. Вид диких тварин та їхню кількість, яких використовують для фотопослуг особи за адресою __________________________________________________________________.
2. Право власності на тварин, а саме документи, що підтверджують легальність набуття у власність.  Законність набуття у приватну власність об’єктів тваринного світу (крім добутих у порядку загального використання) повинна бути підтверджена відповідними документами, що засвідчують законність вилучення цих об’єктів з природного середовища, ввезення в Україну з інших країн, факту купівлі, обміну, отримання у спадок тощо, які видаються в установленому законодавством порядку.
3. Наявність документів дозвільного характеру, до яких належать дозвіл Міністерства екології та природних ресурсів України.
4. Наявність ветеринарно-санітарних паспортів на тварин, ветеринарних свідоцтв, ветеринарних карток, ветеринарних довідок, які видані державними інспекторами ветеринарної медицини або уповноваженими чи ліцензованими лікарями ветеринарної медицини, що підтверджують ветеринарно-санітарний стан тварин видані відповідно до Закону України “Про ветеринарну медицину”.
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