Developments in the hunting tourism sector NPA “Belarusian society of hunters and fishermen”

Abstract

Hunting tourism, whose main purpose is catching trophy animals, became ingrained in hunting sec-tor activities. “Belarusian society of hunters and fishermen”, the oldest public association, did not be-come an exception. One of the main objectives of this association, leased about 60% of the hunting grounds of the country, is to ensure the condition for the realization of the right to hunt. For this reason, management associations have a certain specificity of activity on the organization of hunting tours. In general, in RSPA BSHF dominate fields, which account about 56.2% of the total areas, the most productive forest hunting grounds are equal to 38.6%. The area of forest hunting grounds and their quali-tative characteristics largely determined by the number of hoofed animals in hunting sector. The highest number of hunting tours with foreign hunters was in 2013. After that a recession was observed. The larg-est number of foreign hunters visited Vitebsk region. More than 90% of hunters come from Russia, the proportion of hunters from the EU countries increased more than in 2 times (7.1%) in 2015. The maximum amount of game meat, got by foreign hunters was in 2013 and 2014. In the past few years the demand for roe deer, the highest amount of which was in 2015. Quantity reduction of foreign hunters led to a decline of revenues from hunting tours, starting from 2014 moreover there is an expenses decline for one hunter.