Pakistan enforces hunting ban on Houbara bustard
A victory for animal conservationists everywhere: Pakistan's Supreme Court has ordered a total ban on the hunting of the Houbara bustard, an endangered migratory bird prized by hunters from the Gulf states.
The Gulf states in this case refer to the seven Arab states of the Persian Gulf, namely Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)
The Houbara bustard, about the size of a chicken, once flourished on the Arabian peninsula but has been hunted almost to extinction. The International Union of the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) estimates the global population of Houbara bustards at between 50,000 and 100,000 and includes it on its red list of threatened species.
The Houbara bustard is dull brown with black markings on the wings with a greyish neck and a black ruff along the side of the neck
The court has asked the government to enforce international conventions on conservation which Pakistan has signed.
Although hunting the birds has been banned in Pakistan, the government has routinely made exceptions for Middle Eastern dignitaries on grounds of diplomatic expediency and because they bring "investment in the social sector" like hospitals and schools.
Supreme Court of Pakistan
The IUCN says hunting parties from Gulf countries often "vastly exceed" the quota of Houbara bustard they are allowed to kill under the special permits. In 2014, a Saudi royal hunting party killed more than 2,000 Houbara bustards in a 21-day safari in Chagai, a district in Pakistan.
The ruling came in response to petitions challenging a 2014 Sindh government order allowing hunting under special permits. The Supreme Court struck down the notification under which the special permits were issued, saying that "neither the federation nor a province can grant licence/permit for hunting Houbara bustard".
A view of Karachi downtown, the capital of Sindh province, one of the four provinces of Pakistan, located in the south east of the country
Each year, several thousand Houbara bustards traverse a 2,000km migratory route from Central Asia to the southern deserts of Pakistan and Iran, and return with the onset of summer. The bird also faces threats from oil exploration, road building and mining.
(All images - credit: Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons licence)
