A shadowy group of “dog hunters” that communicates via the Internet is waging war on packs of feral dogs in Russia’s cities, killing the dogs with poison and airgun bullets.
But dog owners and animal rights activists are up in arms, saying the campaign is cruel and ineffective and that beloved pets are dying after accidentally eating the poisoned bait.
The semi-clandestine Doghunters network has grown steadily and spread from Moscow to other large cities including Novosibirsk in Siberia and Yekaterinburg in the Urals.
The group’s members say they want to solve the problem of stray dogs, both abandoned pets and their offspring born on the streets, which have bred vigorously and often attack passers-by.
The members post graphic photos of slain dogs on specialized Internet forums where they also exchange tips on the best poisons and how to kill a dog with an airgun.
In the Moscow region, some 1,300 dogs have been killed — most of them poisoned — by the group members in the last three years, according to animal rights activists.
In a manifesto published on a website called Vredy.org, or Nuisances, Doghunters say their goal is to “fight against the parasitic fauna that stops humans from living safely and comfortably“ “We are fighting wild dogs. We do not exterminate pet dogs,” Doghunters say on their website, titled “No to vermin!“
But pet owners complain their dogs are also falling victims to the poisoned baits. Some 500 dog owners rallied last month after dozens of dogs were poisoned over the course of a few weeks while being taken for walks in a Moscow park.
Threatening signs put up in the park said that dogs must be muzzled and on leads and “if you do not respect these rules, your dogs will die too.”
The signs were illustrated with photographs of children bitten by dogs. The dog owners demanded that the Doghunters be put on trial, calling them “sadists” and “butchers” and threatening physical reprisals.
“If I ever see someone poisoning a dog, I will skin him — even if I go to prison for it,” popular actor Leonid Yarmolnik said during the protest.
The Soviet authorities routinely captured and killed stray dogs, but after the fall of the Soviet Union, the population ballooned, reaching 30,000 in Moscow alone by 1996.
Nearly 400 people died in Russia between 2000 and 2010 after being attacked by dogs and over 13,000 are bitten every year in Moscow.
“We do not want to become victims,” activist Dogmeat said, adding that he joined Doghunters after several people he knew were attacked by dogs.
“There are packs of very aggressive stray dogs,” animal trainer Yelena Orochko told AFP. “These are big and strong animals capable of surviving on the streets.”
While the dogs have to survive harsh conditions and sub-zero temperatures, members of the public feed them and they also take food from easily accessible rubbish bins.
A program for stray dogs launched in 2001 by Moscow city hall under which the dogs were sterilized and then let free proved ineffective.
Since 2008 the dogs have not been re-released after a 55-year-old jogger was attacked and killed by stray dogs.
The city has built shelters that can accommodate almost 15,000 animals, but that is still insufficient.
“We would prefer for the dogs to be captured and placed in shelters, where if no one claimed them, they would be put down,” one “Doghunter” member from Siberia, who gave only his nickname of Dogmeat, told AFP.
He claimed that government efforts “had no effect” so far because the state funding allocated for tackling the problem “had apparently been embezzled.”
But animal rights activists slam the Doghunters as sadistic animal abusers.
“The Doghunters are maniacs. They enjoy killing. Unfortunately, the police do not want to react,” said Daria Khmelnitskaya, an activist with animal rights group Vita.
Killing or abusing an animal is a criminal offense punishable with up to two years in prison, but activists complain that the authorities fail to enforce this law.
Russian ‘dog hunters’ wage death campaign on strays
Russian ‘dog hunters’ wage death campaign on strays
Robert Duvall: understated actor’s actor, dead at 95
- One of his most memeorable characters was the maniacal, surfing-mad Lt. Gen. William Kilgore in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 Vietnam War epic ‘Apocalypse Now’
- One regret was turning down the lead part in ‘Jaws’ (which went to Roy Scheider) because he instead wanted to play the salty fisherman, a role that went to Robert Shaw
LOS ANGELES: Robert Duvall, a prolific, Oscar-winning actor who shunned glitz and won praise as one of his generation’s greatest and most versatile artists, has died at age 95.
Duvall’s death on Sunday was confirmed by his wife Luciana Duvall in a statement posted Monday on Facebook.
Duvall shone in both lead and supporting roles, and eventually became a director over a career spanning six decades. He kept acting in his 90s.
His most memorable characters included the soft-spoken, loyal mob lawyer Tom Hagen in the first two installments of “The Godfather” and the maniacal, surfing-mad Lt. Gen. William Kilgore in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 Vietnam War epic “Apocalypse Now.”
The latter earned Duvall an Oscar nomination and made him a bona fide star after years playing lesser roles. In it he utters what is now one of cinema’s most famous lines.
“I love the smell of napalm in the morning,” his war-loving character — bare chested, cocky and sporting a big black cowboy hat — muses as low-flying US warplanes strafe a beachfront tree line with the incendiary gel.
That character was originally created to be even more over the top — his name was at first supposed to be Col. Carnage — but Duvall had it toned down in a show of his nose-to-the-grindstone approach to acting.
“I did my homework,” Duvall told veteran talk show host Larry King in 2015. “I did my research.”
Duvall was a late bloomer in the profession — he was 31 when he delivered his breakout performance as the mysterious recluse Boo Radley in the 1962 film adaptation of Harper Lee’s novel “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
He would go on to play myriad roles — a bullying corporate executive in “Network” (1976), a Marine officer who treats his family like soldiers in “The Great Santini” (1979), and a washed-up country singer in “Tender Mercies” (1983), for which he won the Oscar for best actor. Duvall was nominated for an Oscar six other times as well.
Duvall often said his favorite role, however, was one he played in a 1989 TV mini-series — the grizzled, wise-cracking Texas Ranger-turned-cowboy Augustus McCrae in “Lonesome Dove,” based on the novel by Larry McMurtry.
Film critic Elaine Mancini once described Duvall as “the most technically proficient, the most versatile, and the most convincing actor on the screen in the United States.”
In her statement Luciana Duvall said, “to the world, he was an Academy Award-winning actor, a director, a storyteller. To me, he was simply everything. His passion for his craft was matched only by his deep love for characters, a great meal, and holding court.”
‘A lot of crap’
Born in 1931, the son of a Navy officer father and an amateur actress mother, Duvall studied drama before spending two years in the US Army.
He then settled in New York, where he shared an apartment with Dustin Hoffman. The pair were friends with Gene Hackman as all three worked their way up in showbiz. These were lean times for the future stars.
“Hoffman, me, my brother, three or four other actors and singers had a place on 107th and Broadway in Manhattan, uptown,” Duvall told GQ in 2014.
Duvall said he had few regrets in his career.
But one was turning down the lead part in “Jaws” (which went to Roy Scheider) because he instead wanted to play the salty fisherman, a role that went to Robert Shaw.
Director Steven Spielberg told Duvall he was too young for that part.
Duvall also admitted he took some jobs just for the money.
“I did a lot of crap,” he told The Wall Street Journal in 2017. “Television stuff. But I had to make a living.”
Duvall made his home far from the glitz and chatter of Hollywood — in rural Virginia, where his family had roots.
He and his fourth wife, Argentine-born Luciana Pedraza, 40 years his junior, lived in a nearly 300-year-old farmhouse. Duvall never had children.
He said he went to New York and Los Angeles only when necessary.
“I like a good Hollywood party,” he told the Journal. “I have a lot of friends there. But I like living here.”
And of all his storied roles, Duvall says his favorite was indeed that of the soft-hearted cowboy McCrae in “Lonesome Dove.”
“That’s my ‘Hamlet,’” he told The New York Times in 2014.
“The English have Shakespeare; the French, Moliere. In Argentina, they have Borges, but the Western is ours. I like that.”
