PTI Government Fails to Stop Wildlife Smuggling.

K-P fails to take steps to
control illegal trade

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) wildlifedepartment has failed to take
steps to control the illegal trade
of birds and other animals across
the province.
Leopard geckos, black scorpions,
turtles, tuatara and myna birds are
just a few of the animals that are
being poached from K-P, they are
then being traded illegally not only
in the province but throughout the
country and some are even being
smuggled out of it.
Like in all other provinces, the
black scorpion and the gecko have
been pushed to extinction by the
greed of poachers but it is the
province’s birds that are suffering
the most at their hands.
The trade is at its peak but arrests
and other measures by wildlife
officials is limited to vendors who
sells myna, parrots and other
colourful birds without obtaining
licences to do so. “We are poor
people and this is the only way we
can make a living,” justified
Bahadur Khan, who was arrested
by wildlife officials for hunting
down dozens of Myna birds.
Sardar Muhammad Khan, who also
illegally hunts and trades valuable
birds, told The Express Tribune that
almost every bird they catch has a
market. The hunting of such birds
is banned by the K-P government
but due to inaction and lack of
deterrents, the hunting continues,
from Chitral to Peshawar.
Choos Kata is one of the rare birds
being hunted in Chitral’s Shali and
Ayoun areas and can fetch
between Rs40,000 and Rs50,000.
The terinaak, is sold for Rs10,000,
while the Choora goes for up to
Rs20,000. However, the most
expensive of them all is the Bari
Surkh, with a single one being sold
for between Rs5 million and Rs6
million. The Bari Surkh is usually
smuggled to Arab countries as few
local buyers can afford it.
However, catching these birds is
not easy, especially as they become
increasingly rare. “We begin the
hunting season at the start of
October and it goes till the end of
December but we are only able to
hunt down 50 to 55 birds,” said a
poacher. “Some of these birds die
while they are being transported in
sacks to other cities so that’s even
fewer birds that we are able to
sell.”
Not all animals are exported
though. The sekar and the
peregrine falcon are being
smuggled into the province from
all over the world, despite their
trade being banned in the entire
country, according to divisional
forest officer Niaz Muhammad.
While proper data on wildlife is
lacking, Muhammad claimed that
there are 455 different species of
birds in the province, out of which
around a dozen are considered
rare.

Published in The Express Tribune,
October 10 th, 2014.

Source: http://tribune.com.pk/story/773013/k-p-fails-to-take-steps-to-control-illegal-trade/