Nine men held for poaching migratory birds

The wildlife department apprehended the poachers from various parts of Sindh

SUKKUR: A team of the Wildlife Department, Sukkur, arrested on Wednesday nine persons from Salehpat in Sukkur district and Khairpur and recovered 300 quails from their possession.

The deputy conservator of Sukkur wildlife department, Taj Muhammad Shaikh, said that there was information about people coming from Punjab and catching migratory quails from Salehpat and other parts of the province. According to him, two teams were formed to investigate the poaching.

During snap-checking on National Highway near Khairpur, the wildlife team stopped a Punjab-bound bus carrying more than 200 quails and arrested six people. Besides this, another team raided the desert area of Salehpat and arrested three people, recovering from their possession 100 quails, he informed.

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The deputy conservator added that the confiscated birds and the men were shifted to the Sukkur office for investigation and a case has been registered against them. The arrested poachers have been identified as Muhammad Siddiq, Sultan and others, all of whom hailed from Punjab. Shaikh said that these quails mostly come from Iran during this season and become the prey of greedy poachers.

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Sources inside the department claimed that besides 300 quails, more than 50 partridges were also recovered from the poachers, which were not shown to the media. However, the deputy conservator refuted this claim. He said that these birds will be released in the desert area within the next couple of days.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 24^th, 2015.