|
Hunters cover a dead wolf after the hunt in the village of Khrapkovo, Belarus November 4, 2016. Wolf fur grows thickest in winter, so Belarussian hunter Vladimir Krivenchik only sets his traps once snow is on the ground. He and his wife live on the edge of the Chernobyl exclusion zone – 2,600 square km of land on the Belarus-Ukraine border that was contaminated by a nuclear disaster in 1986. The zone's resurgent wolf population poses a threat to nearby livestock, so local farms pay hunters like Krivenchik a flat fee of 150 Belarussian roubles ($80) for each wolf they kill. Wolf numbers are more than seven times higher in the Belarussian part of the Chernobyl zone than in uncontaminated areas elsewhere in the region, according to a study published in scientific journal Current Biology in 2015. According to official data, about 1,700 wolves were culled in 2016. (Photo by Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters)
|
