Afanasiy Ilich Tobonov (Афанасий Ильич Тобонов) (May 11, 1945 - August 28, 2009) was a Russian veterinarian who established that fuel from stages ejected from rockets launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome was the cause of death for livestock and wildlife.
He was born in a large family in the area Eliptyan Horulinskogo naslega Nyurbinsk ulus of Sakha Republic (Yakutia). His father was Afanasiy Iliich Tobonov, a horse breeder, his mother, Tobonova Anisya Kirillovna, a homemaker. He died August 28, 2009 from liver cancer.
In 1972, he graduated from Yakut State University and received his degree as veterinary surgeon. He successfully worked as a veterinary surgeon for many years, and then for the trade union bodies. The region, where he was born and bred, was traditionally a beautiful untouched natural wilderness area, but was underneath the flight path of space rockets and their ejected stages.
He observed in native edge for branches of the second steps of the rockets-carriers, started from cosmodrome «Baikonur». The Beliefs of military cosmic department about safety of "branches of the steps, their full combustion in thick layer of atmosphere, including, the remainder their fuel — an Unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (Ru:Гептил)" were refuted by Tobonov. Due to profound knowledges in the field of chemistries and biologies, he has shown that remainder fluid fuel of Unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine under its fallout as sediment, meeting whilst in transit with the other element form dangerous for surrounding ambiences high-toxic material, for instance — a prussic acid. He rejected the argument that anthrax was the cause of these mass animal deaths, and showed that the mass deaths of animals and birds were noted only along the route of the cosmic rockets.
Dead wildlife and livestock were usually incinerated where they died. The participants in these incinerations, including Tobonov's brothers and inhabitants of his native village often died from stroke or cancer.
About this he wrote in republican newspaper YAkutii: "Sahaada" - 31.10.1991,16.02.1995, 23.02.1995. "Tuymaada" 16.05.1997, 30.05.1997 etc., in book "Rockets on аласами" (Aldiarhay аартыгын аргыара), Jakutsk, 2007, s. 240.
Later, in 1997 the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation decided to change the flight path and removed the ejected rocket stages near his homeland.