Every winter, Houbara Bustards fly into Pakistan for creating life. Hunters from Middle Eastern nations follow them here to rid them of this idea.

For decades now, nobles and royals from Middle Eastern states have used the deserts of Pakistan as their own personal hunting ground. They arrive in Pakistan with their massive entourages and their trained falcons and permission letters, or rather “invitation” letters from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to stage grand hunting parties. Their prey of choice is, of course, the Houbara Bustard, which is hunted through trained falcons, which have also often been transported to them after being poached from the very same country they have been brought back to.

But this is not the falcons’ story. This tale of woe is about the Houbara Bustard, a species which has become terribly scarce because of excessive hunting.

Preservation of the Houbara Bustards falls prey to the hunting desires of the high and mighty

Why do the Arabian gentlemen hunt Houbaras so passionately? The most common and oft repeated answer is that the Arabs consider Houbara meat a magical aphrodisiac. Science states that it is a diuretic, but no one has invited science to this party.

Another reason that the people who have previously supported the hunting parties in their native areas present is more of a historical take. They claim, while vociferously breathing through the phone to this author that they must remain “anon”, that it is the romance of the nomadic life that compels the Arabs to pursue the Houbara across the sand, “guided by moonlight”.

Historical “facts” are presented about the hard life of the Arabic nomads who had naught but the North Star to guide them and their trusted falcon friends to hunt Houbara for them for sustenance. While it may be necessary for us all to feel sorry for the hard-knock life these distinguished persons had to go through, and how they want to keep the tradition alive, the fact that they are excessively hunting a vulnerable species every single year calls for logic to prevail.

Pakistan continues to give special licenses to Arab rulers and senior officials. This year Pakistan issued 33 permits allowing dignitaries to kill up to 100 birds each.

Surprisingly, there are quite effective rules that, at first glance, promise conservation of the blighted species. The birds are protected under local provincial laws. Scientifically known as Chlamydotis undulata macqueeni, the Houbara Bustard was previously a sub-species of Chlamydotis undulata, which is listed as “vulnerable” in the IUCN Red List. It is also listed in CITES Appendix I, a list with the names of the most spectacularly unlucky species in terms of poaching and hunting. Balochistan holds the ineffectual honour of having the Houbara Bustard as its provincial bird. According to the Third Schedule of the Balochistan Wildlife Act (1974), “all Bustards” from the family Otididae are listed as “Protected Animals; i.e., Animals which shall not be hunted, killed or captured.”

Earlier this year, however, how one hunter went from his allowed 100 birds limit to 2,100 birds may have remained a mystery if Dawn had not published a news story by veteran environmental journalist Bhagwandas based on a report titled ‘Visit of Prince Fahd bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud regarding hunting of houbara bustard’ prepared by Jaffar Baloch, Divisional Forest Officer of the Balochistan Forest and Wildlife Department.

While obviously facing backlash from within his department and from “influentials”, Baloch maintained that while people need to consider the horridly large number of birds killed, they also need to understand that poor and deprived people living in and around the areas where the birds roost seek out the foreign dignitaries to offer them their assistance with the hunts in exchange for money or gifts they can later sell off to buy essentials.

His statement rings true in light of the fact that local wildlife departments also function with limited budgets and are staffed with people who are not trained about the latest amendments in wildlife laws and international animal rights laws. During these hunts, they face pressure from “higher ups” whose will cannot be denied. The fact that it is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and not the provincial wildlife departments that have the authority of issuing Houbara hunting invitations to foreign dignitaries just adds more complication to the mix.

A deluge of posts from concerned citizens, activists and environmentalists flooded social media after the news of the report surfaced. People condemned the ministry, the wildlife departments and locals who aid hunts. A gentleman sardonically went as far as to start a petition addressed to the makers of the drug Viagra to supply a lifetime’s worth of the pill to Arab hunters so that they would not seek out Houbara Bustards as an aphrodisiac.

Recently, two private citizens, Lal Khan Chandio and Rahib Kalhoro, challenged the issuance of Houbara hunting licenses in the Sindh High Court. The Sindh High Court has issued a notice to concerned officials in high offices to share an exaplanation. This may have stalled the hunt this season so far in the province, but the delay possibly won’t deter the hunters from flying in as scheduled. Members of one of the largest and most active hunters’ group in Pakistan seem unimpressed and expect the hunt to take place as soon as the news of the case fades out from local media.

The moderator of the group’s Facebook community, one Nadeem Paracha, is a veteran hunter. In a comment via email, he writes, “If it’s illegal for Pakistanis to kill these birds why should the Arab sheikhs be allowed to do it?”

Paracha goes on to state that the bird has almost been wiped out on the Arabian Peninsula and various countries in the region, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia, who have now set up breeding programmes to try to revive numbers yet ironically they still prefer mass hunting the bird in Pakistan.

“Pakistan continues to give special licenses to Arab rulers and senior officials. This year Pakistan issued 33 permits allowing dignitaries to kill up to 100 birds each.”

Paracha is also of the opinion that as far as issuing hunting licenses is concerned stopping the hunt for merely a season or two will not help. Empowering local communities to turn into protectors instead of poachers seems like a good enough idea.

The sentiment is echoed by the World Wide Fund for Nature–Pakistan (WWF-Pakistan) in a position paper. The organisation has successfully helped in the uplift of many communities in KPK and Gilgit-Baltistan, which now protect threatened animal species in their area by promoting lawful trophy hunting in partnership with the local wildlife departments. While this has not eradicated illegal hunting entirely, the effort is still there to erect effective barriers for hunters who may otherwise go on shooting sprees.

So why has a solution of this sort not been sought out for Houbara Bustard hunting as well?

Colonel Earnest Shams, who is associated with The Houbara Foundation International in Lahore, states that since the population of the Houbara Bustards is spread in different countries in the region, the territorial dispersion further makes it difficult to learn more about the flocks. As Houbara Bustards are migratory birds, hunters claim the numbers are stable, whereas the activists state otherwise.

In the region, India slammed a lasting ban on the hunt of the bird in 1979. Since then, the country has often complained about the fact that due to the large number of birds being hunted in Pakistan, the flocks that arrive in India are small in number, which affects their local ecology. On the other hand, before 9/11, Afghanistan also hosted Saudi and Emirati dignitaries for Houbara hunts. Only the fall of the Twin Towers and the start of the War on Terror stopped this. In his article about the bird for the Foreign Policy blog, journalist J. Dana Stuster refers to Steve Coll’s book Ghost Wars, in which the writer states that in 1999, the CIA traced Osama Bin Laden to an Emirati prince’s hunting camp in Southern Afghanistan, where the former “mujahid” was a guest. While CIA considered taking out the man by launching a cruise missile attack, the idea was ultimately abandoned to avoid causing a royal death. The rest, as they allege, is history.

All of these circumstances, intriguing as they are, leave Pakistan largely in charge of the fate of the Houbara Bustard in South Asia. The species hangs in balance; on the other side is the immense, unending wealth of Saudi and Emirati princes and dignitaries. Since Pakistan has never quite taken itself seriously enough to formulate a plan that benefits it while still placating those who have the power to trample the country’s “sovereignty”, it remains to be seen just how much we are willing to be gladly robbed of our natural assets. Over and over again.