DERA GHAZI KHAN, Oct 25: The wildlife department has broken its rules by allowing the UAE dignitaries to hunt houbara bustard in Dera Ghazi Khan and Rajanpur during their recent visit.
The Punjab wildlife department has banned hunting of houbara bustard, a bird facing extinction, in this part of the country.
It is learnt that the local department has also cancelled the licenses of the hunters for netting, possessing and dealing of falcon to facilitate the dignitaries.
Sources told this correspondent that the department had ignored its own rules by allowing the foreign guests to have an aim at the bustard. They added that the Houbara Foundation, which was constituted to protect this prey bird, was also blind to its rules when it came to please the UAE officials.
Besides, the Dera Ghazi Khan and Rajanpur police have set up security camps for the protection of foreign hunters at various sites on the directive of the Punjab IGP, according to a letter No 8454-58/AD-111.
Five of those camps for hunting and netting houbara bustard have been established at Chak Maghlu (adjacent to the Dera airport), Mauza Dalana, Kot Mubarak and Choti Bala Sakhisarwar.
In Rajanpur, nine camps have been established to facilitate the dignitaries of the UAE. Residents around these localities have often complained about the inconvenience they have been facing in their chores due to interruption by the security personnel.
According to the department’s rules, any one who will hunt houbara will have to pay Rs5,000 for each bird as a compensatory amount, besides paying as much and surrendering hunting equipment and vehicles. These rules have been relaxed for the foreign dignitaries.
“Netting license issued under clause (111) of a section of the Punjab Wildlife Act 1974 states that no person shall hunt any game animal, except under the permit and in accordance with the provisions of this act or the rules.”
Similarly, the permit for dealing in falcons is issued under section 15 of the Punjab Wildlife Act 1974, which states that “no one shall as a profession, trade or business, buy, sell or otherwise deal in wild animals, unless he is in possession of a valid license.”
It is learnt that there is no provision of cancellation of licenses under the act, but the Punjab Wildlife and Parks director-general has cancelled all the issued licenses without intimating the hunters in writing.
When this correspondent contacted a department official, he said the licenses had been cancelled when the UAE dignitaries offered them the fee equivalent to the sum submitted by local hunters in the province against the cancellation of their permits.
The department, he said, was bound to take such a decision to give protocol to the foreign dignitaries.
Meanwhile, the assistants of the UAE rulers have reached here to make arrangements for the hunting in a month or so.