KARACHI, Oct 17: The Sindh government has allowed private people to establish breeding and game farms in the province for the purpose of hunting, it is learnt.

Sources said that establishment of such farms would help conserve wildlife as it would lead to a reduction in the pressure of hunting and poaching of the wildlife in general and certain species, that are facing extinction threat, in particular.

In this regard, they cited the examples of many countries, including South Africa, where private breeding and game farms had yielded positive results viz-a-viz protection and conservation of wildlife.

Under the plan, the farms thus established would be regulated by the laws of the wildlife department, officials of which would have the authority to visit and monitor the farms at any time to ensure that all relevant laws were being complied with.

Hunters, however, will have to pay more for hunting as they have to first get a hunting licence from the Sindh Wildlife Department and then seek permission from the farm owners for hunting.

The sources said that farm owners would have to arrange for the parent stock of the animals from various breeding farms operating in the province or abroad. They would have to breed these animals first, and allow hunting only when the animals' number became sufficient.

A farm owner found to have trapped an animal in the wild where the number of that particular animal was already very low, owing to poaching pressure, could prosecuted.

The sources said that the wildlife department would have to keep an extra vigil to ensure that farm owners did not trap/steal animals from the wild.

The sources expressed the apprehension that influential figures, in their bid to take undue advantage of the facility, might resort to getting large tracks of lands leased at rock bottom prices and eventually utilizing parts of such lands for other purposes, e.g. agricultural. Such practices had been resorted to in the past also when kutcha area lands where large tracks of the riverine forests were cleared to bring the lands under cultivation at the cost of biodiversity and environment.