The Ministry of Nature Protection in Armenia confesses that it has no clue as to who is involved in the Italian company that calls itself Ararat Safari which has a site on the web advertising the Araratian Plain in Armenia to bird hunters worldwide.

Department heads at the Ministry in Yerevan have been calling the telephone numbers listed on the website in an attempt to find out more about this heretofore unknown company. (The telephone numbers on the site are: Cell-093-55-59-70 and City-010-55-71-06). So far they haven’t been able to get through to anyone at these numbers.

There’s also a Yerevan address noted on the website-40 Charents Street. There’s an apartment building located at this address and all of the 5 families residing there said they had never heard of Ararat Safari.

It’s a bit odd that Ministry officials, in conjunction with the Police, have not yet been able to find out anything regarding the identity of the company personnel or the location of the hunts, especially given the fact that the site contains several photos.

Arcrun Pepanyan, Head of the Ministry’s Press Relation’s Department, said that they are presently investigating the matter. He stated that, “Given that we have no positive evidence to the contrary, we declare that such a company doesn’t exist.”

Editor’s Note - We would advise the Ministry to contact its local department in the city of Masis, under whose jurisdiction is located the Armash wetlands shown in the photographs. By the way, one of the hunters shown in the photos is a resident of Masis.