Tag: trophy hunting

  • Man put behind bars for illegally hunting ibex cubs

    Man put behind bars for illegally hunting ibex cubs

    A man was sentenced to jail for eight months by the Hunza wildlife magistrate for illegally hunting two Himalayan ibex cubs.

    According to Dawn, the Gilgit-Baltistan wildlife department had discovered the carcasses of ibex cubs during the inspection of a vehicle at Ganish bridge on the Karakoram Highway in Hunza area. The officials seized the carcasses and arrested Rehmat Khan of Altit area.

    The DFO of the area shared that the poacher hunted the ibex cubs in the surroundings of Attabad Lake before attempting to transport their carcasses to Gilgit. He revealed that the wildlife department with the help of police seized the carcasses and hunting gear. The poacher was handed eight months imprisonment under the Wildlife Preservation Act, 1975.

    Meanwhile, the Khunjerab Village Organisation has accused personnel of Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) to have hunted three Himalayan ibexes in Khunjerab National Park in upper Hunza. They claimed that the FWO personnel killed ibexes after cordoning off the area, and took away the carcasses, adding that they have substantial evidence to prove their claims.

  • Special hunting permit issued to King of Bahrain for rare houbara bustard

    Special hunting permit issued to King of Bahrain for rare houbara bustard

    Special permits have been issued by the federal government to King of Bahrain Sheikh Hamad bin Isa bin Salman al Khalifa and five of his family members to hunt the internationally-protected houbara bustard during the 2019-20 hunting season. The permits were delivered to the Embassy of the Kingdom of Bahrain in the federal capital and had the names of hunters and the areas allocated to them.

    According to a report in Dawn News, the king and his hunting party which includes his uncle, his country’s interior minister, adviser on defence, cousins, and other people have been granted special permission to hunt the endangered bird in different districts of Pakistan including Jamshoro district, Sujawal district, Naushahro Feroze district in Sindh, Jaffarabad district in Balochistan, Tando Mohammad Khan, Hyderabad and Malir (excluding Malir Cantonment and Dhabeji areas) districts.

    Under a code of conduct issued by the foreign ministry, a hunter can hunt 100 houbara bustards in a 10-day hunting spree during the three-month-long hunting season between Nov 1, 2019 and Jan 31, 2020.

    Though the houbara bustard belongs to the colder central Asian region, every winter it migrates southwards towards the relatively warm environment here.

    Ruthless hunting by Arab hunters has resulted in a sharp decline in its population because of which it is protected under various international nature conservation conventions and a ban on its hunting has been imposed – Pakistanis are not allowed to hunt this bird.

    Previously, Prime Minister Imran Khan had been very critical of Nawaz Sharif’s government for permitting the hunting of the rare bird.

  • Kashmir Markhor trophy-hunted in Chitral

    Kashmir Markhor trophy-hunted in Chitral

    American hunter Joe Lawrence Walreven hunted a 48-inch long Kashmir Markhor in Toshi Conservancy in Lower Chitral.

    According to reports, the hunt was done after a permit worth $140,000 was obtained from the wildlife department.

    The divisional forest officer of wildlife division, Mohammad Idrees, shared that the 82-year-old hunter faced no difficulty in finding an animal for hunting as he spotted and earmarked a 10-year-old markor within an hour after he disembarked from his vehicle on Garam Chashma Road near Chitral city.

    Joe reportedly “wasted no time in shooting the animal” and achieved his trophy skillfully. He fired a shot at the markhor from a distant range by his Remington rifle. The animal fell down instantly.

    Last week, Italian hunter Carlo Pasco hunted the season’s first Markhor trophy in Skardu town. According to reports, Pasco successfully hunted a flared-horned markhor after paying a permit fee of $85,000.

    Meanwhile, last month, it was reported that the wildlife department of Gilgit Baltistan has auctioned four licenses for hunting the markhor, the official national animal of Pakistan after the Ministry of Climate Change agreed to the licenses, including for trophy hunting of the much in demand flare-horned Astore markhor, a large goat species native to Pakistan.

    Each license was sold for over $80,000, of which 80 percent will go to the villages where the hunt takes place for developing their infrastructure.