Millions of migratory birds of hundreds of species visit our land to spend winter here and their colourful presence enhances the natural beauty of our country.

But due to the policies of our avaricious decision makers, the Saker Falcon (Falco cherrug) and Peregriene Falcon (Falco peregrinus) face the threat of extinction.

Residents of Central Asian region, these rare and endangered species of falcons are trapped in large numbers in NWFP, Sindh and Balochistan to cater to the rich Arab hunters who arrive every year to hunt the internationally protected houbara bustard. Since the introduction of Arabs and their petrodollars for the past quarter of a century, these birds are widely sold to the visitors who easily pay millions of rupees for a bird that takes their fancy. Falcons have a certain life span with phases such as youth, adulthood, and old age. Hence the older birds need to be replaced after a few years with younger ones so that they could hunt effectively.

Considering the steeply declining population of falcons, following the concerns raised by local and international conservation organisations, the government has imposed a ban on the trapping and netting of falcons a couple of years ago. However, not to annoy their Arab friends, a policy of “re-export” was introduced under which the government issues an Arab dignitary – a re-export permit allowing him to bring in a certain number of falcons for hunting, and then take these falcons back home at the end of his safari. The idea behind this policy being that since the hunters would bring in their own falcons, they would not purchase the birds during their hunting trip here. The re-export permit and falcons are checked at the entry and exit airports. Though each falcon is brought in on a “passport”, the document is not very effective and could be used for any falcon. Besides, it is checked by the customs people who lack expertise in wildlife recognition. Some falcons are also “ringed” but the rings can be taken off and put on other birds and is hence not a very effective way of regulating their movement.

A number of falcons are brought in on these permits well before the hunting season starts and sometimes even a person who has not been issued the houbara bustard hunting permit gets the falcon re-export permit. Hence using the re-export permits, people bring in aged, sick, or useless falcons and replace them with younger ones that are easily available in the underground black market here.

Just to cite one case, this year a re-export permit for 15 falcons was issued to the Governor of Tabuk Prince Fahad bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia. These falcons were brought in through Karachi airport. While traveling to Chaghai in Balochistan, they were intercepted by the law enforcement agency personnel but released when the re-export permit was shown. After a week-long stay here the falcons returned to Saudi Arabia. Prince Fahad did not visit Chaghai during that time and no houbara bustard permit was issued to him either. No sensible reason comes to mind for the falcons’ arrival here except for the reason that during the stay, the falcons were swapped.

The wildlife conservator of the Federal environment ministry, Umeed Khalid expressed his concern over issuance of re-export permits for falcons prior to allocation of houbara bustard hunting areas. The facility was not only misused for illegal export of fresh falcons but also resulted in unauthorised hunting of houbara bustard. “ We need to regulate the falcon movement more effectively,” he added.

The deputy director general World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Dr Ejaz Ahmed believes that the current method of checking falcons while entering and leaving the country is not effective. Though with technological development, identification is no more a problem as microchips with numbers and other information have been developed and these are injected into falcons. The government could make it mandatory that all the falcons entering the country should have microchips so that these could be scanned at airports and therefore ensured that the same falcon which was imported was being re-exported.

A former WWF president Brig (retd) Mukhtar, who currently heads the Falcon Foundation, said that issue of illegal export of falcons could be resolved if the dignitaries were requested to bring in falcons fitted with microchips.

A former NWFP chief wildlife conservator Dr Mumtaz Malik said that the current system of falcons entering and leaving the country was faulty and vulnerable to misuse. “Some time back a hunting party from the UAE landed at the Peshawar airport and wanted to take their falcons to southern Punjab, but we told them that we would not allow their falcons to enter until a “microchip” was fitted in each of them. They disagreed and flew back.”

The microchip should be mandatory so that hunters adhere to the policy, and the highly rare falcon species could be saved.