KARACHI, Oct 9: Balochistan Wildlife Department staff caught three poachers in two raids and seized nine rare demoiselle cranes from them, registered cases, imposed and recovered fines and confiscated the migratory birds, said a BWD official on Tuesday.

Lasbela district wildlife deputy conservator Maqbool Dashti told Dawn that the wildlife staff while patrolling at the Sarinda lake in the district on Monday evening caught two crane poaching parties camped at the lake and seized the highly rare birds from them and brought them to the department’s wildlife recovery centre in Uthal.

He said that in the first raid conducted on the southern side of the Sarinda lake, in Winder tehsil, three poachers were caught and two cranes, which had been caught from the lake earlier, were seized from them.

He said that a case was registered against the suspects – Mashal Khan, Mohammad Umer and Bahram Khan – hailing from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and a fine of Rs10,000 each was imposed on them. They paid Rs30,000 and were allowed to go home. The cranes were confiscated.

In another raid conducted on the northern side of the lake, which is in the Liari area in Uthal tehsil, seven demoiselle cranes, caught earlier at the lake, were seized but the poachers seeing the wildlife staff rode away on their motorcycles. The wildlife team tried to chase them, but their rickety official pickup was no match for the bikes. It got stuck in soft land. Besides, it was getting dark and the poachers could not be pursued further. However, the birds were brought to the Uthal centre.

He said the cranes were very weak with their wings injured, and would be kept in the recovery centre for a week or two till their recovery and would be released in the wild in the presence of the media and other persons.

Demoiselle cranes are among the hundreds of thousands of birds that travel southwards from their abodes in the cold Central Asian region to spend the winters in a warmer environment in the subcontinent with most of them spending their winters in the Bharatpur wildlife sanctuary and wetland complex in the Indian state of Rajasthan.