KARACHI, Dec 10: The Sindh government, flouting federal government’s directives, has issued hundreds of permits for catching and trading in falcon, a rare species facing extinction, it is learnt reliably.

According to sources, the relevant federal authority, the National Council for Conservation of Wildlife (NCCW), had directed all provincial wildlife departments not to issue any such permits. All but Sindh have been following the directive, they claimed.

Pakistan is a signatory to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (Cites), which had been expressing its concern over the dwindling population of the falcon and had also urged the government to check and discourage poaching and trading in the falcon so that the bird’s survival could be ensured.

The NCCW had conveyed the Cites concern to all provincial governments accordingly, directing them not to issue the mandatory permits.

The sources pointed out that trading in the falcon had become a multi-million venture after sheikhs from the Gulf states started coming to Pakistan for hunting houbara bustard, an internationally protected bird facing extinction threat. The hunters use falcons to catch houbara bustard, meat of which has aphrodisiac qualities, the hunters believe.

The migratory falcon species – Peregrine and Saker – are the most sought after birds for the hunters owing to their size, speed and stamina. A good falcon, that catches the fancy of such a hunter, can easily fetch around Rs10 million.

The sources said that the issue of falcon permits surfaced when a few falcon traders from Sindh visited the NWFP a few days back and approached the wildlife department there and sought permit for buying and keeping the falcon there so that they could bring the bird back to Sindh. They produced a similar permit issued to them by the Sindh government.

The NWFP wildlife department took the permits, issued by the Sindh government in its custody and reported the matter to the NCCW. It also turned down the traders’ request, maintaining that the NWFP government would not defy the federal government’s directive in this regard.

Responding to the Dawn’s queries, the NWFP Wildlife Conservator in Peshawar, Mumtaz Malik, said that the department had issued a few permits last year before it received the NCCW’s directive to stop issuing more permits for falcon catching or hunting. Since then, he said, his department had issued no such permit.

He said the request for the permit by some traders from Sindh had been turned down recently on the very grounds.

He, however, stated that he had reported the matter to the NCCW.

Umeed Khalid of the NCCW in Islamabad told this scribe that the council had sent letters to all provincial wildlife departments regarding the concerns shown by Cites with call for a halt to the issuance of the permits.

When the Sindh Wildlife Conservator, Ghulam Rasool Channa, was contacted, he first agreed to provide details of the permits for falcon hunting including the exact number of such permits issued, and requested this scribe to contact him after some time.

However, when he was contacted again, he declined to furnish the facts, saying he would not comment on this ‘highly sensitive’ issue.

Brig (r) Mukhtar, chief of the Falcon Foundation in Lahore, has also expressed concern over the issuance of permits by the Sindh government and urged the federal authorities to ensure implementation of its directives in this regard to save the Falcon from extinction.