KARACHI: Twenty-two falcons of highly rare and endangered species — saker — were seized from a bus on the Superhighway at a Rangers checkpoint at Jamshoro, some 150 kilometres from the city, early on Saturday, officials said.

The saker falcons are migratory species and the 22 birds caught on Saturday are said to be in good shape and each bird could easily fetch between Rs1 and Rs2 million on the black market as selling, purchasing and trading of falcons are banned under the wildlife protection laws.

Currently the wildlife black market is said to be in a recession as purchasers have not come to the country this season owing to a ban on houbara bustard hunting.

Responding to Dawn queries, Sindh wildlife department Hyderabad deputy conservator Ghulam Mohammad Gadani said that Rangers at the Jamshoro checkpoint during a checking of a bus (No EA 2709) coming from Peshawar and going to Karachi detected wooden boxes and found saker falcons inside them.

They immediately called SWD game officer Wajid Shaikh present at the checkpoint to inspect the falcons who identified them as saker falcons — a protected species. The birds were seized.

Mr Gadani said that nobody in the bus claimed ownership of the falcons so bus driver Wilayat Hussain and conductor Tariq Aziz along with the bus — Jeddah Coach — had been detained and were still at the checkpoint while the rest of passengers were allowed to leave.

He said that the Rangers had handed over the falcons to the SWD staffers and a case was being registered.

SWD game officer Rasheed Khan and other staffers would take the falcons to Karachi, where these would be released into the wild, in presence of senior Rangers officials, he added.

He said that in the last couple of weeks his department staffers had caught 34 falcons — 12 in Aliabad near Jamshoro, eight in the kutcha area near Amri off the Indus Highway, and 14 in Badin — but these were low-quality local falcons used to catch or trap migratory falcons of saker and peregrine species, which are used by Arabs belonging to the Gulf states to hunt internationally-protected houbara bustard.

The residents of colder central Asian regions, these migratory falcons follow other migratory birds, also residents of colder central Asian region, which come to spend their winters in relatively warmer environment here every year, he said. He said that earlier the hunters used to purchase the falcons during their stay here, but now owing to the ban on hunting, the hunters did not come here this year so these falcons probably were to be smuggled out of the country by air or by sea routes to the Gulf markets.

In these Gulf markets, conservatively speaking, these birds of prey could easily fetch between Rs5 million and Rs10 million each, added the wildlife official.

Published in Dawn, October 11th , 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play