Houbara bustard’s meat is prized
for its supposed aphrodisiac qualities and the bird is considered to be at risk
of extinction
Jon Boone in
Islamabad
Monday 12 December 2016
17.24 GMT
One of Pakistan’s four provinces
has banned Arab sheikhs from hunting a protected species of bird, defying
Islamabad’s longstanding policy of giving hunting licences to key regional
allies.
Swaths of habitat used in the
winter by the migratory houbara bustard are allocated in blocks to the some of
the most senior people in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia and
other Gulf states, who come armed with specially modified vehicles and radar
systems to track the birds.
But an official in the government
of the north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province said it had rejected a request
from a party of Qatari princes to shoot houbara bustards and would no longer
allow such hunts.
On Sunday the politician Imran
Khan, whose Pakistan
Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) partly runs the province, had said he would not allow
anyone to hunt houbaras “as it is a protected bird and hunting them is
illegal.”
Arab hunters first started coming
to Pakistan in the 1960s after houbara stocks in the Arabian peninsula were
decimated.
Pakistan’s three other provinces
all permit hunting, in spite of opposition from conservationists who say the
fast-dwindling houbara population will not survive the annual onslaught.
Although the hunters are only
permitted to kill up to 100 birds each, it is difficult to control powerful
visitors who reportedly hand out gifts of cash and jewellery to local notables.
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