KARACHI: Sindh Wildlife Department has handed over five falcons to United Arab Emirates officials so that they could be returned to the UAE, it is learnt here.

Responding to Dawn’s queries, Sindh Wildlife conservator Taj Mohammad Shaikh said that the five falcons of highly rare and endangered species, Saker, had arrived from UAE on Jan 21.

He said a Pakistani, Abdul Rasheed Baloch, who had brought the falcons owned by a UAE citizen named Saeed Sohail, did not have the legal documents — passport, import permits etc — for the falcons so the Customs staff at Jinnah International Airport detained the falcons and asked the passenger, Mr Baloch, to bring the legal documents.

Till the documents were made available, the Customs, who have limited knowledge or expertise of wildlife upkeep, handed over the falcons to the SWD for safekeeping.

After a wait of over three weeks, documents of the falcons arrived and the migratory birds were handed over to the UAE consulate general’s designated personnel so that they could be sent to UAE instantly, he said.

Mr Shaikh said that as Pakistan was a signatory to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora, it was bound to return the birds, having no legal documents, to the country from which they had arrived.

Sources, however, said that the reason why the Saker falcons were brought to the country was not known, as the falcons were used for hunting of internationally protected houbara bustard, which could be hunted only under a special permit, issued by the federal/provincial government.

They said that these special permits were highly restricted and were issued only to royal family members of the Gulf states. Neither Mr Baloch nor Mr Sohail had the special hunting permit. Besides, the hunting season also ended on Jan 31. So the reason for bringing in the falcons could not be known.

Conservationists have demanded that a high-level probe be initiated to find out the real reason for which these falcons were brought in to the country towards the end of the hunting season, particularly by a person who did not have a hunting permit.

The sources said that sometimes the Gulf hunters, who could not manage to get the special houbara hunting permits, had private “arrangements” with some local influential people who arranged their illegal hunts and received some “favours” and “benefits” from the poachers for the illegal hunting of houbara bustards.

Sometimes the hunters also bring in the aging falcons to Pakistan to have these changed with younger ones, available in the illegal black wildlife market as they cost relatively less here than on the Arabian peninsula.

Residents of Central Asian/European region, Saker falcons follow other birds, including houbara bustards, of the region to avoid harsh weather conditions, migrate southwards to spend their winters in a relatively warmer environment here. The Saker falcons are trapped in large numbers and sold for millions of rupees each to the Arab hunters who use these falcons to hunt the internationally protected houbara bustards during their brief winter stay in the country.

Published in Dawn, February 18th, 2018