An Afghan bird refuge comes back to life after decades of neglect

By PAMELA CONSTABLE | The Washington Post | Published: June 25, 2017

KABUL, Afghanistan — Just south of the Afghan capital, on a busy road lined with car repair shops, goat corrals and garbage pits, a narrow lane opens unexpectedly onto a small natural wonder — a picturesque, nearly hidden marsh that is known only to a few Afghans and inhabited only by migratory birds and several families of wild dogs.

The 470-acre site, known as Kol-e-Hashmat Khan, is one of the rare recognized wetland areas in central Afghanistan. Once it drew wealthy sightseers and royal hunting parties, but during four decades of war and turmoil it lay abandoned and neglected. The water filled with sludge, unauthorized settlements sprang up around the edges, and fewer birds stopped to rest or breed in the desiccated marsh.

Now, an ambitious effort to clean up and restore the site, launched several years ago by the Afghan government and local civic groups with support from the U.N. Environmental Program, is starting to bear fruit. Water from the nearby Logar River has been diverted with sandbags, and new reed growth has attracted an increasing number and variety of birds.



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Bets and roars at Afghan bird fight resurgence

KABUL: The sun has barely risen. Already, dozens of Afghan men are swapping fistfuls of bank notes, frantically betting in one of the country’s goriest pastimes: bird fighting.

In a shady patch, under a cluster of trees in a Kabul park, two partridges face off at opposite ends of a small square of dirt. The spectators press closer, roaring the birds on as they clutch their cash.

A man sprinkles water into the air to keep the stifling heat at bay for the birds. “These two birds are very good. The fight could last 10 minutes to two hours,” said Hafizullah, a large man in his 50s, wearing a red and white turban.

Under the 1996-2001 Taliban regime, such a scene would have been unthinkable. The Islamists banned all forms of gambling and animal fighting. But under the Western-backed government of today, fights between anything from quails to bulls have been restored as a violent aspect of daily life in Afghanistan.

In the second round, one partridge grabs the other by the neck before being thrown off. 

As the fight goes on, bets rise. “At the beginning, bets were like $200, but now it’s $800 and it’s going to be higher. This fight will continue until one of them runs away,” says Hafizullah. Gradually the birds become caked in mud, they shed feathers and become more and more aggressive, fired up by the violence and shouts from the crowd.

After more than a hour, one partridge refused to continue, losing the fight and prompting the spectators to overrun the fighting ground as money changes hands.

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