VLADIVOSTOK (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 14th June, 2019) A district court in the Russian Far Eastern city of Vladivostok fined on Friday OOO Okeanarium DV, a company engaged in capturing orcas and white whales from the so-called whale prison, 56.4 million rubles ($874,070) for violating fishing regulations, a Sputnik correspondent reported from the courtroom.
After the regional border department of the Russian Federal Security Service provided the court with all necessary documents, it launched investigation into fishing activities of four companies. One of them, OOO Belyi Kit, was slapped with a 28 million rubles fine on June 7. The court has also started hearing cases against OOO Sochinsky Delfinary and OOO Afalina.
"To consider OOO Okeanarium DV guilty and to slap it with a fine of 56.429 million rubles," judge Olga Yasinskaya said.
The company has committed multiple violations, including using wrong types of fishing tools, vessels, constructions for transporting orcas, and also fishing in wrong places. Meanwhile, the defense insists that the firm is not guilty.
The so-called whale prison in the Far Eastern Srednyaya Bay made headlines in fall, after Greenpeace reported that preparations for selling 13 orcas � which are on the Red List of Threatened Species � to China were underway, while 15 orcas had already been sold to China. A probe has been launched into the illegal fishing of aquatic animals and animal abuse. Russian President Vladimir Putin charged relevant agencies in February to determine the fate of the animals and verify whether they had been caught and kept in captivity legally. The release of the inhabitants of the so-called prison into the wild may start this summer.
