Reindeer are as much a part of the festive season as Santa and his elves.
But while kids will be painting pictures of them on their Christmas cards and singing the praises of Rudolph and his chums, British hunters will be paying up to £6,000 to shoot them for kicks.
Even more shockingly, the animals are officially classified as “vulnerable” and are already extinct in parts of Lapland. And scientists say hunting is one of the main reasons for their decline.
The Santa slay holidays are being organised by a Russian winter safari company – whose website even features a grotesque image of a Christmas tree made of antlers from slaughtered beasts.
Other pictures show satisfied gun-toting customers proudly posing with slain reindeer, bears and other wildlife in the snow.
Adverts aimed at the lucrative UK market offer guided stalking holidays and guaranteed “kills”, starting at £1,024 for seven-day reindeer hunts.
Hunters wanting to take trophies such as antlers home to Britain will have to pay another £470. “Mixed bags”, including bears, grouse, moose, wolves and lynx, rise in price, with a reindeer and moose package costing £5,660.
Anti-hunt groups have slammed the tours. Eduardo Goncalves, of the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting, said: “These sick serial animal killers spoil Christmas for children everywhere.
“Rudolph and his mates pulling the sleigh are part and parcel of Christmas time for kids. Now it’s Rudolph lying dead in the snow. Reindeer may go extinct if things carry on as they are.”
The hunts are organised by Baikal Royal Safari and take place in forests near Lake Baikal in southern Siberia.
Participants are housed for up to a week in specially equipped hunting lodges or a “traditional hunting camp”, with saunas, wi-fi, skis, snow-mobiles, quad bikes and ammunition.
Online ads are designed to appeal to frequent hunters with their own weapons, such as rifles and crossbows, and highlight reindeer special promotions over the Christmas period.
Under a photograph of a gun-toting hunter and a slaughtered, bloodied stag with huge antlers, company owner Vladislav Lee promises “the most interesting and effective winter hunting in snow”.
Under the terms of the deals, only high-calibre rifles are allowed and promotional material stresses the price of any trophy “is not included”, but is negotiable. Advice on shipments of trophies is offered, as is the help of the company’s recommended taxidermist. Lee boasts the company was founded in 2000 and operates in 14 Russian territories.
Campaigners expect a Black Friday sale for the hunting trips to be online shortly.
The hunts are legal in Russia and former leader Leonid Brezhnev was a keen participant. In Britain, the Safari Club International awards prizes for the highest number of reindeer kills chalked up by members.
Its UK president, Steve Jones, said he had no connection with the Russian outfit but defended hunting and his company’s practice of making awards for kills.
He said: “Critics are often ill-informed and motivated by financial or political gain. Hunting contributes to the protection of habitat and species that are threatened by poaching and human encroachment. Hunters enjoy making a valuable contribution.”
In 2018, Mr Jones memorably clashed with presenter Piers Morgan when he appeared on breakfast TV to defend hunting because fans “enjoyed it”.
Morgan threatened to shoot him with a bow and arrow, skin him alive and stick his body on a wall.
Mr Jones is a former Tory mayor of Beaconsfield who defected to UKIP. In 2016 he posted a snap of himself with Boris Johnson at a Tory party social event under the caption: “Out with my mate tonight.”
The Prime Minister is under pressure to fulfil a two-year old vow to ban trophy imports. But a Bill has been delayed as Whitehall officials undertake a new round of consultation amid fears the new law will be watered down.
Campaigners fear a loophole will allow hunters to continue as normal for a “blood money” payment to conservation projects.
Reindeer trophies such as antlers would still be legal under the proposed ban.
The new law is likely to cover species listed on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species’ list of animals threatened with extinction. But reindeer are classed as vulnerable on the red list of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature – just one level below endangered.
Campaigners want future legislation to cover trophy imports from all species and Labour MP John Spellar is preparing his own Bill. It is backed by the Sunday People and a host of celebrities, including Ricky Gervais.
The comic behind The Office and After Life spoke out when we ran a picture of a shot polar bear projected by campaigners at Glasgow’s COP26 climate summit.
Campaigner Mr Goncalves said: “Boris Johnson says he plans to ban hunting trophies from some species. We need a total ban to discourage these people from killing reindeer and other defenceless animals.”
Mr Goncalves, who recently received a “12 days of Xmas” offer for hunting gear from a trophy hunting newsletter, added: “You literally can’t make it up!”
Shadow Environment Secretary Luke Pollard said: “Trophy hunting is cruel and unjustifiable. We need to ban imports of trophies from endangered species now.”
'My bill to ban sickos'
- Comment, by John Spellar, Labour MP for Warley
I’, backing the Sunday People’s campaign to outlaw sick souvenirs of trophy hunting such as reindeer.
Next month, I will
be putting a Bill before Parliament to put this in law and I’m now inviting the Government to support it.
Many of us remember the magnificent creature Cecil, the lion shot in Zimbabwe by a trophy-hunting American dentist in 2015.
Following an international uproar, the Government said it would ban British hunters from bringing home lion trophies, then promised to outlaw ALL trophies of endangered species.
But the ban never materialised.
And now the Government has postponed its own legislation, saying there’s not enough time in its schedule.
So I’m offering them a solution.
The Government can adopt my Bill. That way, we get the ban they’ve promised – and which nine in 10 voters want.
Disgracefully, since 2015, the year Cecil was killed, another 95 lion trophies have been brought into the UK by British hunters.
In all, around 1,000 trophies of elephants, giraffes, zebras, and monkeys have been brought back to Britain
since then.
British trophy hunters even brought back the body of a polar bear last year.
Now a company is even offering sick hunters the chance to slaughter reindeer for Christmas
So, Boris, let’s give wildlife, and voters, something to cheer this Christmas.
Let’s ban trophies from Britain now.
