Russian hunting and business. Opening and registration of a hunting society How to open your own hunting farm

There is a wide range of opinions about what a hunting economy should be in Russia. wide - from the idea of ​​free access to the land for everyone to the requirements for hunting users to justify the prices for licenses. But nobody asks the question about the volume of investments. I propose to discuss the question "How to make Russian hunting a business?"

EXPERIENCE OF THE OWNER OF THE HUNTING FARM

Reports on successful farms in Europe, America and Africa have already been published many times. You always have to envy the conditions in which the hunts take place, and the trophies that are mined there. All this is the result of serious investments and a business approach to organizing activities.

In this article, under the term "business" I propose to consider the classic scheme: investments, return on investment, return on fixed assets, profitability of the current activities of the enterprise. It is from these positions that it is necessary to diagnose the state of Russian hunting as a branch of the economy.

Why is this necessary? The transition from the Soviet economy to a market economy and competitiveness has not yet been completed. Different sectors of the economy have changed and are changing at different rates. A number of industries have long been formed and become competitive on a global scale (IT, communications, grain production, and so on), some are in the process of transition (housing and communal services, transport, etc.), and some have not yet begun transformation. This is the case with hunting as a branch of the economy. The whole point of the discussion today is how to make hunting cheap and affordable for everyone. Such a formulation of the question is not found anywhere else in the world. The answer to it can only be provided by the state, taking upon itself all the costs, but we have already gone through this ...

If an industry becomes attractive for business, investments go there, competition arises, a price-quality ratio is established that suits both the consumer and the investor. The number of quality offers is growing dramatically, brands are being created and reputation is increasing. The consumer only benefits from this. There are an unlimited number of examples of such a transformation. Soviet devastation is changing to a civilized service market. Let's remember the Soviet shops ...

LOSS OF RUSSIAN HUNTING FARMS

The thesis about the unprofitableness of hunting farms is constantly being heard. Nobody even argues with this. All have resigned themselves and consider it a fact.

Currently, there are several thousand hunting farms in Russia. I do not know the exact figure, but the estimate from above shows that there are at least 10,000 of them. Of these, they provide services to third-party hunters dozens of times less. What's the matter? The owner of the farm has two options - to keep it for his own hunts or to create an enterprise to provide hunting services. Elementary calculations show that the first way is several times cheaper than the second. Investing in infrastructure for commercial hunting (base for guests, staff, transport, roads, feeding animals) without a clear return on investment plan is economic madness. This is the answer to the question of what other farms are doing - they work for the owner, this is 3-5 hunts per year and the requirements for infrastructure, the number of personnel, and so on are completely different. Financing such a "toy" does not require large investments - 1–2 million rubles. When tired, they will resell to another hunter.

Our hunting farm "Dnepr-Kholm" has existed for a little less than three years. It was created on the site of the former municipal unitary enterprise, who "died of exhaustion." The territory with an area of ​​50 thousand hectares was a "scorched desert", since no biotechnical work was carried out, there was no protection of the territory in principle, and poachers felt at ease. I think this situation is typical for the emergence of the majority of private hunting farms in Russia.

When building a hunting farm, the task was set to provide services for organizing hunting. The staff was selected from among local residents. The first two years were spent on the arrangement of the territory: roads, glades, fields, towers, salt licks. Various equipment was purchased (more than 20 units), hunting was organized, a personnel motivation system was introduced, which taught people to earn money, and not wait for handouts.

For me, this time was spent on understanding the mechanisms of the functioning of the hunting sector, on understanding the systemic problems associated with hunting in our climatic conditions, with the quality of work of "local specialists", with the peculiarities of the mentality of the Russian hunter.

Farms that today provide commercial hunting services cannot be called business enterprises from the usual point of view. Either they receive subsidies from their owners on an ongoing basis, or their proceeds are only enough to cover operating expenses, and there is no talk of a return on investment. Some farms still use the Soviet infrastructure and investments of the same time in the breeding of animals on the grounds. Someone was lucky, and all the beast from the surrounding area goes to them and you can beat him "as much as you want." Such examples can be given, but these are exceptions, a happy coincidence, and not a business.

The climatic and biological features of the territory of Russia, as well as its fertility, do not favor biological diversity and the growth of animal populations. We have few species of animals that can be hunted on a large scale; the size of their populations, as a rule, is small, and the number of licenses for each hunting farm is measured in units, rarely tens (except for wild boar). We have low soil fertility, we have severe winters, high snow cover, high mortality of animals in winter. But this is our land, and we need to learn how to work and build a business on it.

ECONOMY OF MODERN HUNTING

Frequent discussions about the high price of commercial hunting are absolutely meaningless - the price covers only a part of the real cost of hunting and maintaining the hunting farm. In fact, the owner pays extra to "his" farm for each hunt carried out, almost every hunt is subsidized. And where is the business here?

A little about the economics of hunting in the wild.

In our farm, thanks to the system of budgets of income and expenses, it is very clearly visible how expensive hunting in the wild is. The main items of expenses: staff salaries - 40%, transport maintenance - 40%, biotechnical measures - 15%, other expenses - 5%.

As for transport, in Russian conditions it makes sense to operate the most advanced types of equipment - UAZ, Burany, STELS ATVs and others. The reason is that everything breaks in the hands of the men. These machines, unlike expensive imported ones, can be repaired by themselves using a "sledgehammer and chisel". All attempts I know to use expensive ATVs, snowmobiles and the like have been unsuccessful - our people simply do not know how to handle equipment with care.

It is pointless to build or repair roads on the land, you can only clean them. I started with the repair, but all the work went down the drain - the timber trucks drove into a muddy road and destroyed everything. Therefore, we bought a TTM tracked carrier, although the cost of its operation is enormous.

The equipment is operated all year round: detours, salt licks, top dressing, aspen cutting, and so on. The volume of biotechnical work is enormous, so the equipment is used intensively and consumes a lot of fuel. In our farm, monthly expenses for fuel and spare parts are 60 thousand and 40 thousand rubles, respectively. I cited these expenses as an example - they are not visible to visiting hunters. Just to cover them, it is necessary to shoot 10 young of the year wild boars every month, based on the average price for a young of the year of 10 thousand rubles, and 120 per year. In our conditions, it is still impossible to catch that many wild boars.

Income from elk hunting is small, since, based on the prevailing price of hunting with all services of 55 thousand rubles and the usual number of licenses of 5-10 pieces, their total financial contribution is 275-550 thousand rubles.

Income from hunting for feathers and small animals does not provide significant financial income.

Only the income from the hunting base remains. But when operated only on weekends, they do not greatly cover the cost of maintenance and repair. If the base will provide services not only to hunters, then this is a different type of business that has nothing to do with hunting. It is pointless to consider a situation where income from the base subsidizes hunting.

These calculations show that the farm has very few sources of income from hunting in the wild without breaking the law.

The experience of foreign farms shows that the main share of the proceeds is provided services for organizing hunting and the cost of trophies, and only then - the cost of meat (shooting non-trophy animals). The meat of the shot trophy does not belong to the hunter, it must be paid for separately!

We have developed a peculiar attitude towards hunting in our country. Most hunters go hunting for meat, not trophies. There is no such thing anywhere in the world. Our common poor soviet past still tenaciously holds us in its arms. The cost of hunting is viewed through the prism of the cost of a kilogram of pet meat on store shelves. This is the essence of our problems. Society looks at hunting through the eyes of a poacher who sees a certain amount of meat in any animal. Trophy qualities, the process of hunting as an art and ritual are on the periphery of consciousness; usually all hunters require meat hunting on the first day of the hunt. Hunting grounds are assessed from the point of view of shooting speed, no additional services in the field of hunting are in demand.

Based on this, we can conclude that talking about the selection of trophy animals and purposeful hunting for them is meaningless. The lack of a hunting culture and a focus on hunting meat makes this lucrative destination impossible for hunting in the wild.

This approach is a verdict on the current hunting management system. In these conditions, it makes no sense to invest in the development of hunting services, to create offers on the market. The industry is doomed to stagnation, attempts to achieve profitability of farms result in additional pressure on the animal world, which will rapidly degenerate and disappear.

In Russian conditions, any hunting farm that provides commercial services without an enclosure and tries to maintain itself on its own, of course, exerts excessive pressure on nature.

WHAT TO DO?

There is only one way out - the creation of a large number of enclosures for semi-free keeping of animals. In our climatic conditions, this is the only way to have large populations of hunting animals, not to depend on state hunting rules and the number of licenses obtained, to hunt year-round, and to breed trophy animals. This is an opportunity to build a business in the hunting industry. This will remove the colossal pressure from the wild world and allow animal populations to begin to recover. Of course, hunting in the wild will continue, traditional hunting for us will take place, but hunting farms will no longer see hunting for wild animals as the only source of their existence. Perhaps, it is worth legislatively introducing the requirement that the hunting user is obliged to create an open-air cage farm after a certain period of time.

In my opinion, this is the only opportunity to develop hunting as a business without ruining nature.

Our farm has developed a business development plan for the next three years. Due to intensive biotechnical measures, the number of the main commercial species of animals is increasing every year. The number of licenses obtained from the state is constantly increasing. But this is not only the result of intensive animal reproduction. In the region, our farm is the only one that conducts commercial hunting. The other five farms work only for their owners and are partly reproduction areas for us, since we attract animals from all over the area. With the help of the model of the functioning of the farm, it is clear that only with a twofold increase in the proceeds from hunting (in two or three years we will reach this indicator), the farm will reach an unstable recoupment of current costs. If all farms in the region start to work like this, then nature will not withstand the load ...

We have found an alternative approach for the development of the hunting sector - the creation of an open-air cage, the formation of the livestock of various types of hunting animals. This will allow hunting all year round, evenly loading the infrastructure and providing a constant flow of proceeds. Intensive use of an aviary can give a financial result significantly higher than hunting in the wild.

WHAT SHOULD THE AVIERE BE?

The traditional Russian approach to enclosures is a fenced-in area, within which various species of animals somehow live. No additional zones, except for the mother liquor, are provided. No selection work is expected. The real effectiveness of such an enclosure is low, since animals interfere with each other, degenerate, can kill other individuals, and so on. In the world, animal breeding in open-air cages has long been developed and is a normal business both in agriculture (breeding for meat) and in the hunting industry (breeding animals for a shot and growing trophy specimens). There is a large amount of specialized literature that describes the models and technologies of such farms. But if in Europe or New Zealand aviaries are a means of obtaining outstanding trophies, then for Russia it is the only "recipe" for hunting.

ECONOMY OF VOLIERA

The creation of an aviary requires a large investment. First of all, this is the purchase of land and the installation of a fence. Old, partially overgrown farmland is best suited for buying land. The forest fund in Russia can only be leased, so its inclusion in the enclosure area always carries a certain risk. The fence could be built from anything, but it is better to use proven technological solutions accepted around the world. First of all, we are talking about a fixed-knot mesh, which is already on sale in Russia.

In 2012, an open-air cage with an area of ​​110 hectares was built in our farm, the length of the fence is almost 6 kilometers. We made the aviary thoroughly: we used the best materials (a special English mesh for the cages, thick-walled drill pipes as pillars), deepening the pillars into the ground by one and a half meters and concreting them. The cost of materials and installation of 1 kilometer of the fence is more than a million rubles. The prospect for the development of the aviary is the possibility of adding additional zones in the future. The territory that is available to us allows us to make a system of aviaries with a total area of ​​400 hectares. The economy of an aviary is determined by the number and composition of animals. Here, each farm can choose its own path and offer its own set of hunts throughout the year. You can bet on the number of animals and shoot them on "royal" driven hunts, you can bet on growing unique trophies, but this takes years. You can come up with something unique for our conditions and be the only one on the market.

The wild boar is of little interest, since it has a fairly large wild population and the price is low. In addition, the risk is great - African swine fever can nullify the population in the aviary, which has been created for several years.

Elk - no fence will hold it. Only a wild population.

Deer (various species), fallow deer - live well in open-air cages.

Mouflon - lives, but requires additional hoof care. Roe deer - only small groups, but there is experience in growing. Exotics (ostriches, bison, etc.) - you can try ...

BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

Another big difficulty on the way of building a hunting farm as a business is the lack of qualified personnel. It is necessary to manage the hunting farm as an ordinary enterprise. If we consider the economy as a business, then it is necessary to implement a number of absolutely standard procedures: development of a business plan, creation of business processes, budgeting of income and expenses, reporting, development of job descriptions, and so on. It is impossible to find specialists on the spot who are familiar with these concepts, given the geography of the location of the farms. People still live without it and sincerely do not understand why it is needed. If only local residents are recruited, then the management system will be based on "communal-tribal" relations, as is customary in the provinces. All friends, all cover each other ... For them, an investor is a "big white stupid man" who is not a sin to deceive.

In our farm, these issues are resolved as follows: the parent company not only finances the farm, but also sponsors all areas of organizational support: financial management, personnel department, legal department, IT service. Everywhere there are employees who supervise the hunting sector, train and advise personnel, and monitor the current work.

A new director has come to our farm. This event was preceded by a month and a half of searching for candidates for this position. Announcements were posted on HeadHunter and SuperJob. There were many applicants, but their résumés and a number of meetings were terrifying because of their level of competence.

Now, with the arrival of a new director, not local, the farm is undergoing a serious reorganization. Naturally, a stranger cannot fit into a "community-but-tribal" relationship. They were "dismantled" and new rules were established. For myself, I concluded that the staff should not be associated with the local community. It's easier and cheaper!

CONCLUSION

In this article, I tried to present my subjective point of view on the economy of the hunting economy and the ways out of the current situation in the hunting industry in Russia. This article was written at the request of the editor-in-chief of the journal.

the hunting farm, located in the Smolensk region in the upper reaches of the great Dnieper river, will be glad to consider you as its guest. The hunting farm was founded in 2010 and since then has been hunting in the vicinity of the village of Kholm-Zhirkovsky on an area of ​​48 thousand hectares. A comfortable hunting base has been built for guests, which can be reached by car along an asphalt road.

In addition to hunting in the wild, effective hunting for wild boars in a fenced-in enclosure with an area of ​​120 hectares in which they are kept is possible within the time frame specified by law. In addition, a deer farm and a deer park, built according to English technologies, were put into operation in the hunting farm, on which we are raising the European red deer for sale in the near future. Guests are offered a tour of the farm and the opportunity to feed the reindeer.

For hunting, we have all the conditions: good density of the animal, equipment for delivering hunters to the hunting place at any time of the year, including a tracked all-terrain vehicle. Half-towers have been equipped for driven hunts, and comfortable all-weather towers have been built for wild boar hunting.

Russia has huge expanses and pristine lands, as well as not fully utilized resources of commercial fauna. Conduct your hunting business wisely in one of the regions of Russia. This implies taking into account the laws of nature and absolute cost accounting. After all, you can make money in nature not only with help.

Modern hunting is not always hunting for birds and animals, but also sports and healthy recreation. This is a wonderful attitude to nature, it makes human life more meaningful and interesting.

The main stages of organizing a hunt:

Step 1 - the lease of land is carried out for the entrepreneur and a passport of your object is drawn up;
Step 2 - a design calculation is performed with a typology of land, biotechnology;
Step 3 - planning business activities.

Important! Many weapons (including hunting ones) require a license. Consider this when organizing your business.

How do I get a weapon license?

Farm form and list of services

Forms of exploitation of the hunting economy according to the increase in profitability per unit area:

• commercial,
• commercial-amateur,
• sports,
• tourist.

The profit from the enterprise will increase with an increase in services and an increase in the throughput of the farm

Development objectives for the first year:

1. It is necessary to draw up a long-term plan of organization and development, corresponding to the goals and direction.
2. Ensure the development of all areas and the attraction of visitors.
3. Provide a combination of hunting as a business with conservation measures and the reproduction of a variety of game animals.
4. Ensure the protection and growth of productivity of hunting grounds.
5. Take care of the safety of customers during their stay

Hunting enthusiasts are often worried about the question: "How to rent hunting grounds?" Where, where, but in Russia there really is plenty to choose from!

The total area of ​​hunting grounds, i.e., habitats of wild animals, in the Russian Federation is 1.5 billion hectares. The number of species of animals for which hunting is permitted (hunting resources) is 228. The hunting sector provides a trade turnover of 80–100 billion rubles.

It is more profitable than feeding minks and polar foxes in open-air cages. The traditional classification distinguishes between open, forest, swamp and water hunting grounds. Public relations associated with their exploitation are regulated by the Federal Law "On hunting and on the preservation of hunting resources ..."

The most demanded are forest resources. In their midst, private hunting grounds are most often organized. There are several classifications of them. The first of them (according to the age of the stand) uses a ten-year gradation for deciduous trees and a twenty-year gradation for conifers. (Grades 1 and 2 - young, 3 and 4 - middle-aged, then ripening, ripe and over-mature stands).

The second classification, according to DN Danilov, distinguishes between swampy, mossy, floodplain, complex, dry and lichen, rocky forest. These are the most general classifications, in fact there are many more.

The legal classification assumes three groups: the first - public hunting grounds (which by law occupy at least 20% of the total), the second - assigned to individuals and legal entities (in fact, the subject of this article), and finally the third - lands, hunting in which is limited or prohibited by the established regime of protected areas.

Those interested in how to rent hunting grounds should focus on the second group.

Selection of land for rent. Preliminary planning

It is obvious that an entrepreneur in the field of the hunting business chooses for himself such a lease of forest land, which is promising and potentially profitable, while using the methods of hunting management work. The activities that it includes are subdivided into preparatory, field and office activities.

Of course, you have to "measure seven times" before you rent a hunting area. During the preparatory measures, documents of land departments of regional executive committees, environmental organizations, veterinary services, and agricultural departments are studied. The meaning of field work is to qualitatively assess the populations of the leased area.

The final stage of the assessment process is desk work, during which the information of the preparatory and field stages is generalized, forest land is estimated in value terms, the hunting economy is geographically planned, rationing of shooting is carried out, biotechnical and security measures are planned, and optoeconomic maps and schemes are drawn up. The species abundance of hunting resources, the way they are spatially distributed, and the sufficiency of natural forages are assessed.

Thus, those who are interested in how to rent hunting grounds cannot do without a huntsman survey of the grounds.

What area should you rent? Opinions, of course, may vary. We believe that the point of view of Aleksey Danilkin, Doctor of Biological Sciences, deserves attention, who believes that an area of ​​ten thousand hectares in the temperate zone is suitable for effectively regulating the number of ungulates. A more moderate approach assumes an area of ​​thirty thousand hectares. The cost of such a lease in its moderate version will cost the entrepreneur $ 600.

Lease registration

If you answer from a legal point of view to the question "how to rent hunting grounds", then, of course, we will talk about documentary operations. The main stages of lease registration are the acquisition of the status of an individual entrepreneur or a legal entity, the selection and lease of specific lands, the conclusion of a hunting agreement with the State Hunting Inspection (as a result of winning the auction), and obtaining a state license for the use of hunting resources.

Licensing will require you to submit an application to the relevant executive body of state power, containing information about the future hunting business, as well as the expected quality and time parameters for the use of the animal world (shooting and restoration). It is reasonable to draw up such an application based on the results of desk work. In fact, this is a draft hunting business plan.

It is possible to acquire ownership of hunting grounds, but it is an order of magnitude more expensive, and, accordingly, the question of profitability here can only go on for long periods of time. It is rather an investment than an enterprise.

Ways of development of modern hunting economy

After acquiring the rights to use, the question of how to organize a hunting farm becomes relevant? An entrepreneur, having rented a hunting farm, not only makes a profit from it, but also purposefully works to increase this profit.

Of paramount importance is the accuracy of determining the number of animals in a given farm at the beginning of the hunting season. This is the cornerstone from which all the main indicators of the hunting sector are planned. First of all, fur-bearing animals are taken into account, as well as large artiodactyls. Their number is estimated in the number of individuals per thousand hectares of land. To do this, first, the count is made on sample plots and routes, and then this sample is rounded up for the entire territory of the lands.

The criterion for the quality of hunting farms is the coefficient of productivity of the land (this indicator is calculated for each type of animal).

For good lands it is 250, for those with a quality above average - 165, for average - 100, for quality below average - 50, for bad - 15. In practice, this means, for example, that there are 2.5 times more animals in good hunting grounds, than the average.

To get good land for rent is, of course, great luck. And, as a rule, it does not exist. Be realistic, you will be leased as a maximum average farm.

You have to improve its quality: improve the fodder base, increase the protective and nesting properties by increasing the forest cover and enriching the plantations. You may even have to land reclamation in a certain area. Only on the basis of a reliable "stern rear" will it be possible to further develop the hunting business.

With a sufficient amount of forage, additional measures for the artificial settlement of the land by animals and birds demonstrate a good effect.

Hunting success depends on the gamekeepers

It is obvious that the understanding of how to organize a private hunting farm must combine not only the approaches of entrepreneurship, but also the specific aspects of the gamekeeper. Competent hunting management should ensure expanded reproduction of animals and birds.

To do this, one should navigate migrations, know the biology of the main animal species and their ability to restore livestock. However, it is incorrect to believe that it is advisable to increase the population of certain game animals above the optimal one. The food supply is deteriorating, and diseases begin. Such a purposeful activity, which solves the problem of how to organize a hunting economy, is called hunting management; huntsmen are professionally engaged in it.

Some household moments

How to start the economic activity of the hunting economy? First, steps should be taken to minimize the number of roads. Ideally, there should be one left, leading to the forestry, equipped with a checkpoint and a barrier.

Unnecessary roads, even if they are used for deforestation, should be tried to be closed legally. And then - dig up and fill up. In this way, a barrier to auto-poaching is put in place and a certain number of risks are prevented in the future. The cost of clearing the road and equipping the post will be about $ 1000.

Documentary accompaniment of the hunt

What documents do the hunting business serve? Each hunter, according to the Federal Law "On Hunting", must have in his hands an unlimited hunting ticket issued by the State Hunting Inspectorate of a single federal standard. (The restriction for obtaining it is an unexpunged or outstanding conviction for an intentional crime).

The second document received by the hunter is a hunting permit (license). It operates within the framework of the hunting grounds that issued it. In turn, the hunting enterprise receives the forms of vouchers (licenses) from the territorial body of the State hunting inspectorate.

Hunting licensed animals, that is, getting them by tracking and pursuing them in a state of their natural freedom, instead of a permit, the hunter receives a license from the hunting farm or signs an agreement. It should be noted that the validity of both the voucher and the license is limited in time. After using the forms of these documents, the hunters are handed over to the hunting farm. In addition, control over the observance of hunting deadlines, registration of vouchers (licenses) forms is a function of the hunting farm.

Organization of the activities of the hunting farm

In general, the organization of the activities of the hunting farm is regulated and carried out by its staff. It is these people, who know how to organize a hunting farm, who determine the level of service for hunters visiting the respective grounds. The basic range of services provided includes the organization of accommodation and meals, gamekeeping services, as well as handling trophies.

Additional services significantly increase the profitability of the hunting industry: bath services, massage, swimming pool, water routes, games (billiards, volleyball, table tennis), organizing picnics with barbecue, playgrounds for sports games, shooting (shooting range), laundry, internet, transport services, ecotourism for hunting.

The general activity of the entrepreneurship in question is carried out on the basis of a plan that takes into account, in addition to the products obtained directly from the hunting sector itself, also investments in it. It should be immediately noted that the first two to three months after its organization, the hunting farm is working to reach the break-even point. During the same period, entrepreneurs in the field of the hunting business are advised to conclude agreements with third-party organizations in order to increase the flow of financing.

Hunting state

The minimum staff of a hunting farm includes a manager, a gamekeeper and a cook. The manager carries out the planning of its development and monitors the implementation of this plan. Requirements for him: higher education (preferably special), availability of vehicles, experience in the hotel business is welcome.

Personally, he negotiates and concludes contracts with partners, clients, organizes work, controls personnel.

The huntsman must have a higher special or secondary education and two years of work experience in this specialty. He takes into account the number of animals, monitors the observance of hunting rules, conducts protective measures and measures to regulate the number of animals. He prepares feed, salt licks, equips feeding grounds and feeders, artificial nests.

The cook, of course, must be a real expert in the preparation of game dishes. The success of the hunting business will also depend on his skill. The cook and the gamekeeper should arrange accommodation separately from the guest houses.

Profit

Since the main types of costs have already been mentioned by us in this article, it remains for us to show the directions of the profitability of the hunting economy. Each such farm approves its own tariffs for trophies obtained by hunters. Only a small percentage of them are income from the sale of vouchers and licenses (300–1000 rubles).

The main source of income is the payment by hunters (clients of the hunting farm) for transport services, huntsman, cook, accommodation, services related to the processing of trophies obtained (salting, smoking, freezing meat, removing and processing skins, intermediary services for the manufacture of stuffed animals). If the hunting farm has a reservoir, then it receives additional income from the rental of fishing equipment and payment for the caught fish (tariffing - by weight).

Hunting goods business

Hunting entrepreneurs, especially from the townspeople, are often interested in what it takes to open a hunting store? To do this, firstly, you need to navigate the legal rules governing the sale of weapons. To open a business, you will need to invest about 3 million rubles in it. Documentedly, you will need permission from the local authorities and the local police department and a license to sell weapons. Its price is 150 thousand rubles.

The rest of the cost items are typical for all entrepreneurs starting their own business. These are state and tax registration, registration with a statistical authority, rent, contract for services of security and fire alarm systems. And, of course, the opening of a hunting store is associated with the purchase of inventory ($ 8-10 thousand) and goods ($ 5-6 thousand).

Output

Organizing a profitable hunting farm is a specific matter. For its successful functioning, it is important to combine the skills of the gamekeepers, outstanding organizational skills, enthusiasm in establishing service, and a unique cuisine.

Farms that have concluded contracts with large enterprises for the recreation of hunters from among their employees are working successfully and rhythmically. The organization of elite hunting with planned trophies and the development of ecological tourism are also promising.

Word of mouth is of great importance: effective hunting, which guarantees trophies, as well as a well-established service is the key to the commercial success of the hunting industry.

Why did I decide to start a hunting farm? To explain this, one must mentally go back to the beginning of the 2000s: the "dashing 90s" are over, the time has come for the economic recovery and the formation of private business. A young private enterprise, of which I am the head, has more or less got on its feet, so there are financial opportunities to go hunting and free time.

I did not master hunting abroad then, but in Russia I hunted. I didn’t like to come somewhere for a couple of days, not for long, and besides, it was more or less clear how I wanted to hunt. Then the idea arose to find like-minded people and create their own hunting farm.

The very first and one of the most difficult problems (and there were many of them) was building relationships with the regional authorities. It was necessary to convince them to give us one of the nine regional reserves for hunting grounds. Fortunately, the management believed in us and allowed us to steer. And in 2008, we issued a long-term lease of land in the Ryazan region, with an area of ​​28 thousand hectares. It was obvious that the lands needed help: before that, hunts were carried out in the reserve either for the local authorities or for local poachers. Both were episodic.

The main animal in the lands is a wild boar, and at the very beginning of our journey, even this ubiquitous animal in the lands was extremely small: during the first seventeen hunts, not a single wild boar was caught. The thing is that if now in our economy it is forbidden to shoot cleavers during the rutting season, and the prohibition on shooting broodstock is in effect all year round, then earlier everyone was shot in a row. There were no work on road improvement, fertilizing and other biotechnical measures in the reserve either: for example, in 2006, only one thousand rubles were allocated from the state budget for all biotechnology. For a year. There were only two towers and four feeders on the land, to which a cart of waste or potatoes was occasionally brought in in the fall. There was one huntsman who did not have any equipment.

We started by correctly organizing the protection of the land and abundant feeding of the wild boars. Firstly, we sowed (and continue to sow now) about 130 hectares of our fields (all that is) with oats, Jerusalem artichoke and corn. Secondly, they began to bring in so much feed to the feeders that the wild boars could not eat everything. Feeding in this way, the queens began to bear twice as many offspring than before. Wandering boars, who came to the feeders with surplus feed, began to bring neighboring wild boars with them. Neighboring hunting farms began to complain that the wild boars had all gone to us, but then their livestock of wild boars and elk began to grow. By the way, we border on three hunting farms, with the leaders of which we have long established friendly relations. We join forces to fight poaching, hunt wolves together, buy seeds and feed.

It’s even scary to remember the initial amount of work: it was necessary to equip salt licks, make bathing pits, cut openings in the forest, clear forest roads littered with fallen trees, purchase equipment, find gamekeepers, “make friends” with the local population ...

True, we developed good relations with the residents of neighboring villages rather quickly. Local men are used to poaching in the reserve, because they did not give vouchers. And I invited them to my team as so-called activists. At first, people shied away, thinking that they would be used only in the wings. Now we have more than 30 activists, this is a well-coordinated friendly team, guys whom I am always glad to see, whose help I really need and really receive. They help us to clear roads, lay out food, lay hare salt licks, clear swamps, make artificial nests, and clean towers. Now, for example, sowing is underway - people are needed who scatter grain with their hands where the seeder does not pass, plant Jerusalem artichoke under a shovel. Activists hunt and enjoy the facilities of the hunting base with us on an equal footing. This means that we give them free trips, eat at the same table, shoot at the same shooting range. To be able to hunt in the fields, that is, to become an activist, you need to be recommended by two members of the team. The second condition is that 10 days a season (for hunting ungulates by a corral and from a tower) or 3 days (for all other types of hunting) must be worked out for the benefit of the economy, providing any possible assistance. This rule does not apply to pensioners and disabled people, they get vouchers without working off.

Now, 17 people are constantly working and serving the hunting farm: cooks, engineers, huntsmen and security guards. I personally manage the farm. But besides me, there is a director, chief game manager and chief engineer who are responsible for order in my absence. I communicate with the team every day by phone and at least once every two weeks in person. Before the beginning of the hunting season, we hold operational meetings. In our free time we work on subbotniks, organize competitions (hunting biathlon, shooting at the "running wild boar", skeet shooting, in the electronic shooting range), we conduct open biology lessons for schoolchildren in the hunting lodge.

Today the farm is not working on a commercial basis and, most likely, will not work in the future. Five volunteer founders cover all material costs. All hunts are not commercial, only for yourself and your friends. But there are many friends, and therefore during the season, every weekend in the grounds someone hunts.

We have the following hunting limit. Elk licenses - 12 per year. For wild boars - 60+, but this limit can be increased with the threat of epidemics. There is also hunting for foxes, hares and several types of bird hunting. Probably, it would be possible to follow the example of the well-known game owner Viktor Labusov and make the farm partially commercial. But, firstly, while this is not necessary, all owners are satisfied with the chosen option of cooperation. Secondly, all the founders understand that the hunting business will not bring a stunning income, and even that is why they do not seriously think about it. And thirdly, Viktor Labusov, as far as I know, immediately focused his hunting farm on both commercial hunting and hunting "for himself." But we, if we ever decide to get on a commercial track, will have to rebuild the entire system of work. So we have no such plans yet. True, recently I had ideas, as an experiment, to negotiate with the owners of the base for fishermen, which is being built on the banks of the Oka not far from us. The point is to offer their guests hunting in our grounds according to the price list. Something similar has been done in the hunting farm "Breeze".

For five years of hunting, we have managed to solve many problems. But many problems, or rather tasks, still remain.

The first is animal breeding. We do a lot for breeding wild boars, elks, foxes and hares. We are actively fighting wolves, and therefore we have a lot of animals. But I believe that the beast should be twice as large and it should be more diverse (which is not observed now). I dream that both fallow deer and roe deer will appear in our forests. An example for me in this matter is Belarus: I see how much is being done and how much there is as a result of the beast.

The second task is the fight against bipedal predators. We carry out security only by the forces of our team members and, in my opinion, it is quite effective, but despite our efforts, once a quarter we detain one or two poachers. To be honest, today I do not know how much we are generally able to solve this problem. After all, there is a direct dependence - the more the animal, the more poachers. Which is logical: neither a wolf nor a poacher will get into a bad economy, where there are few animals.

But the most serious problem is the attitude of people working on the farm. All five years I have been trying to establish good working relationships with the gamekeepers, to ensure that they show initiative, hold on to work. But, unfortunately, not all members of our team do it. Due to the fact that not all huntsmen work responsibly, the whole team suffers and the matter rises. It turns out that if I personally do not keep everything under control every day and check every step, nothing will be done.

The main problem of modern gamekeepers, I believe, is that they can strain, grit their teeth and once do what they need to do (and then you need to look for such people). But for the most part they are not ready for constant daily painstaking work. Sometimes it seems that their main goal is to quickly do what they were told and go home - and then at best. And at worst - leave without finishing anything. At the same time, most of the gamekeepers with whom I have worked are constantly convinced that they are working too much.

Yes, there is a lot of work, I admit it. The gamekeepers are engaged in quite routine work every day: delivering feed along the same roads to the same feeders, servicing equipment that breaks down all the time, and protecting the territory. But, firstly, no one forces you to work around the clock, and secondly, there are also many advantages in work, as in the well-known black joke: then with people! " Seriously, we have the opportunity to pay employees a decent salary, not only by Ryazan, but also by Moscow standards, at our own expense to send them to study the game of the game, share meat, not only work together, but also have a rest.

As a leader, I lack responsibility, interest, dedication, initiative, love for my work in the gamekeepers. Unfortunately, many huntsmen are indifferent to the fact that poachers can use their work, they have no zeal for "their" lands. I came to the conclusion that no matter how you explain that we are working for ourselves, a rare huntsman will look at the farm as his own. As the older generation says, "not native - not sick." Apparently, in Russia in general, in comparison with the same Europe, the internal sense of ownership (the sense of the owner) is poorly developed.

I am more and more inclined to think that I will not be able to "raise" an employee who would meet all my simple requirements. Apparently, you need to look for a ready-made specialist with education and work experience in a hunting farm similar to ours. But searching is also not an easy task. For example, at one time we were looking for a director by placing an advertisement in the newspaper. They searched for a very long time, interviewed 30 candidates. As a result, they still found the director among their own. He turned out to be an old acquaintance who built our hunting base many years ago, whom we checked in practice and whom we trust. He is a reliable person, but now he is already 67 years old, and soon he will not be able to work, he will have to look for a new one - and again everything will start all over again.

I am almost sure that the problems we face are also present in other Russian farms. I would be very glad if someone dissuaded me from this ...

Russian hunting magazine, June 2013

3668