Endangered: Markhor killed in Chitral
Official says poachers loaded the carcass in a pickup van and escaped.
Food shortage, diseases, mine blasts and illegal hunting are major reasons why the national animal is fast becoming extinct in Chitral. PHOTO CREDIT: GOVERNMENT COLLEGE UNIVERSITY, LAHORE
CHITRAL:
Unidentified hunters escaped after shooting a markhor goat in the mountains of Birmoghlasht late Tuesday evening, an official told The Express Tribune.
Buzarg Muhammad, an officer of Chitral Goul National Park, said the hunters killed the markhor inside the park, loaded it onto a pickup vehicle and escaped. He added the dead markhor was worth around Rs9.5 million
Muhammad said that around 8:00pm, one of the park’s guards stopped a pickup vehicle carrying a beheaded markhor 10 kilometres west of Chitral city. Despite several threats from the vehicle’s occupants, the guard managed to retrieve the animal’s head while the hunters escaped with the body.
“They wore masks and spoke in Urdu instead of the local language,” the guard told Chitral city police while registering an FIR. He added the hunters seemed to be government officials because they threatened him of dire consequences for taking the markhor’s head.
Muhammad said the markhor was shot at low altitude as it descended from the mountains, adding the annual trophy hunting competition in Chitral and Gilgit-Baltistan had recently concluded.
Unaware of the number of markhors killed during the trophy hunt, Muhammad said only old sterile males with long antlers were marked as game in a supervised hunt, the licence fees of which can be thousands of dollars.
However, residents of Birmoghlasht blamed local wildlife officials for their negligence and claimed district forest officers had failed to protect the precious animal. They alleged government officials were involved in the illegal hunting of the animal.
Food shortage, diseases, mine blasts and illegal hunting are major reasons why the national animal is fast becoming extinct in Chitral.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 21st, 2013.
Unidentified hunters escaped after shooting a markhor goat in the mountains of Birmoghlasht late Tuesday evening, an official told The Express Tribune.
Buzarg Muhammad, an officer of Chitral Goul National Park, said the hunters killed the markhor inside the park, loaded it onto a pickup vehicle and escaped. He added the dead markhor was worth around Rs9.5 million
Muhammad said that around 8:00pm, one of the park’s guards stopped a pickup vehicle carrying a beheaded markhor 10 kilometres west of Chitral city. Despite several threats from the vehicle’s occupants, the guard managed to retrieve the animal’s head while the hunters escaped with the body.
“They wore masks and spoke in Urdu instead of the local language,” the guard told Chitral city police while registering an FIR. He added the hunters seemed to be government officials because they threatened him of dire consequences for taking the markhor’s head.
Muhammad said the markhor was shot at low altitude as it descended from the mountains, adding the annual trophy hunting competition in Chitral and Gilgit-Baltistan had recently concluded.
Unaware of the number of markhors killed during the trophy hunt, Muhammad said only old sterile males with long antlers were marked as game in a supervised hunt, the licence fees of which can be thousands of dollars.
However, residents of Birmoghlasht blamed local wildlife officials for their negligence and claimed district forest officers had failed to protect the precious animal. They alleged government officials were involved in the illegal hunting of the animal.
Food shortage, diseases, mine blasts and illegal hunting are major reasons why the national animal is fast becoming extinct in Chitral.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 21st, 2013.