May 10, Pozirk. A hunter in Babrujsk, Mahiloŭ region, has been sentenced to two years of “restricted freedom” under home confinement for killing a lynx during a drive hunt for wild boars in late January.
The man pleaded guilty at trial. The court also ordered the confiscation of his hunting rifle.
Although lynx hunting was legalized in Belarus in April 2025, the animal remains on the country’s list of endangered species.
A permit to kill a lynx costs 200 rubles ($70) for citizens of member states of the Eurasian Economic Union and 500 rubles ($174) for hunters from other countries.
In early February, former Interior Minister Ihar Šunievič, chairman of the Belarusian Society of Hunters and Fishers, expressed frustration over hunters’ failure to kill dozens of lynxes during the hunting season, which ran from November 2025 to January 31, 2026.
According to him, hunters shot only six lynxes incidentally, even though the society had authorized the killing of 57 animals.
“It was a complete failure of the season,” he said, noting that hunters lacked both permission to conduct drive hunts and sufficient experience hunting lynxes, a species that had been protected for about 40 years until recently.
