Birds, beware! Poaching season is here

Autumn is here and soon winter will take over. Then, Karachi's skies will witness more birds soaring through them than usual. These seasonal visitors will migrate to the metropolis in search of more habitable conditions, seeking respite from extreme cold elsewhere - and unaware that here, too, they will not be entirely safe.

On the ground, the traps have been laid and captors are on the lookout. Birds, beware. This is the onset of the poaching season.

Over 800 poaching camps have sprung up from Badin to islands off Karachi's coast, with thousands of local residents deployed there so as not to miss out at any shot of capturing a valuable species.

It was just last week that Abdullah Mallah, along with 14 others, captured a falcon.

His party set up a makeshift poaching camp on Bhandar Island, near Ibrahim Hyderi, last month. As he proudly confessed to having trapped the falcon, he related, "We have already sold it and the taking was shared between us all."

Mallah was exhilarated by the first sale of the season as last year, he was unable to catch even a single bird.

"This year, we will only trap falcons. This is the season to earn some money," he said excitedly.

Like him, scores of others are also looking forward to making some extra earnings.

According to Mallah, over a dozen camps have been set up along Karachi's coast alone in the province.

What the poachers, including Mallah, seem to be unaware of is that the activity is illegal.

When asked, Mallah said, "I don't know whether trapping birds is an illegal act. I've been doing it for the past 20 years."

While he was clueless about what legalities needed to be taken care of for hunting birds, he said with surety that the owner of his camp had acquired a permit from the government.

"We are provided food and water and here and no one questions us on trapping birds," Mallah proclaimed.

However, according to Sindh Wildlife Department (SWD) conservator Javed Ahmed Mahar, permits for trapping migratory birds are not issued to anyone.

"We have dismantled several such [poachers'] camps and our teams conduct operations against them on a regular basis," he told The Express Tribune. "This is a decades-old practice, but following the promulgation of the new wildlife law, we have been taking strict action."

The previous law wasn't as strict but under the new law, even a common bird was provided protection, Mahar said, adding that he had instructed SWD teams deployed across Sindh's coastal belt to take strict action against poachers.

As per SWD records, over 100,000 wild birds have been rescued in Sindh during the past 16 months, with wildlife hunting being declared illegal.

However, not everything is as black and white.

Some SWD officials reportedly don't consider poaching birds exactly a 'crime.' The speculation finds some ground in the claims of Badin's and Ibrahim Hyderi's residents, who allege that even some officials have been involved in illegally poaching and trading birds.

"How can it be a crime when the SWD's officials are also involved in poaching?" Muhammad Suleman, a resident of Badin, questioned when asked about the matter. He further claimed that poachers had the backing of influential people in the area.

According to an SWD official, who has requested anonymity, hundreds of people are involved in the trade from Gwadar to Badin.

"This is nothing new and has been happening for years uninterrupted," he said, adding that not just falcons, but all kinds of migratory birds were trapped and sold in the market.

Suleman related that numerous poachers in Badin could be contacted on the phone to purchase birds. "They set up camps and sell birds for a good price," he explained.

Mahar is of the opinion that most people get involved in the illegal trade due to poverty. "People in coastal areas trap birds and sell them off to earn some [more] money, not knowing that it is illegal," he said.

"And they wait for eight long months for this season," bringing them some extra income in the chilly winter, noted Suleman.

This year, the wait is over.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 20^th, 2020.