The Protection of Fauna in the U.S.S.R.! 
By G. P. DEMENTIEV 
Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. 
Translated by John Covert Boyd 3d? 
THE PROTECTION of nature in the U.S.S.R., and particularly of the 
fauna, is a problem as vast as it is complicated. The solution of this 
problem requires extensive and varied measures. This article will 
deal only with those affecting vertebrates. In our country, with its 
immense area and abundant and varied natural resources (there are 
300 species of mammals, 700 of birds, 161 of reptiles and amphibians, 
and 1,500 of fishes and cyclostomata), interest in the fauna dates 
back to ancient times. It was hunting that occupied the attention of 
our ancestors. This is quite understandable, for in the Middle Ages 
hunting played an important part of the daily life. This does not 
mean that today hunting as a sport and an industry, as a way of com- 
ing to understand nature, has lost its value. 
In the principality of Kiev, and later in the Grand Duchy of Mus- 
covy in old Russia, the exploitation and, thus, the protection of the 
fauna formed a branch of governmental administration. This admin- 
istrative activity developed with the Russian penetration into Siberia 
in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. The establishment of a govern- 
ment monopoly on fur trapping and fur trading required measures 
guaranteeing to a certain point the protection of fur-bearing animals. 
The oldest documents pertaining to the control of hunting date 
from the 11th century; it is the collection of laws known as the “Rus- 
skaya Pravda.” We must realize that in Russia hunting has never 
been reserved as an entertainment or a privilege for the nobility or 
1 Reprinted by permission from Atlantic Naturalist, vol. 14, No. 1, January—March 1959. 
2 Translator’s note: This is a free translation of a talk given by Professor Dementiev at 
the Sixth Technical Meeting of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and 
Natural Resources at Edinburgh, Scotland, on June 26, 1956. It was published in French 
in the Proceedings and Papers of the meeting, London, 1957. Professor Dementiev is a 
leading Soviet ornithologist and conservationist, professor at the University of Moscow, 
chairman of the Commission for the Protection of Nature of the Academy of Sciences of 
the U.S.S.R., and a corresponding fellow of the American Ornithologists’ Union. 
I am indebted to Professor Dementiev and to the International Union for the Conserva- 
tion of Nature and Natural Resources for their consent to this presentation of the article. 
483 
