Tough Times for Afghan Animal Traders

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Tough Times for Afghan Animal Traders

 

By Matthew McAllester

STAFF CORRESPONDENT

 

February 10, 2002

 

 

Peshawar, Pakistan - When Mohammed Rafeeq hands you

his multicolored business card, he first shows you the

side with the photograph of an imperious-looking white

falcon gazing into the distance. Turn it over, and

there's a reclining tiger just below Rafeeq's job

title: Falcon Birds & Animals Importer and Exporter.

The message is clear. He can get you just about

whatever rare creature you want.

 

Only, not right now. Recent months have been

disastrous for Rafeeq and the dozens of other traders

in rare birds and animals in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

It's been awfully good for falcons, though.

 

First of all, September and October are the trapping

months for those who want to catch falcons migrating

from Siberia to warmer climes. Unfortunately for the

trappers and smugglers, there was a war just then in

Afghanistan, so snaring falcons became dangerous.

 

The worse disaster for illegal traders was the fall of

the Taliban regime. Taking a tax of $250 per hooked

beak, the Taliban let the smugglers ship unlimited

numbers of falcons and other precious birds and

animals to the United Arab Emirates, where wealthy

buyers from around the world fuel a huge, barely

monitored market for rare and endangered species.

 

" Our business will be finished if the new government

has a different policy, " said Rafeeq, 30, sitting in

his home in Peshawar last month, heavy metal videos

and American wrestling shows playing on his television

in the background. " We could have to start another

business. "

 

" It's not just us. There are thousands of dealers who

will suffer, " said his friend and mentor, Gholam

Mohammed, 53.

 

While pleased that the highly profitable trade appears

to be largely arrested, local and international

conservation officials and experts are not so sure

that Rafeeq and his colleagues will not be back in

business soon.

 

" The general feeling now, as with any other area

that's experiencing civil strife and war, is that

there might be a temporary loss of control and opening

up of routes again, " said Sabri Zain, a spokesman for

the World Wildlife Fund.

 

Until the fall, Rafeeq's was a steady business. He had

people in Afghanistan - and to a lesser extent in his

homeland, Pakistan - who trapped the hundreds of

falcons and other birds he sold each year.

 

Trappers sometimes would send a less valuable bird of

prey into the sky - a bird with modifications. Its

eyes would be sewn shut and to its legs would be

attached tangled cotton loops and a lure that looked

like captured prey. A passing falcon would see the

blinded bird, swoop down to steal its seeming food and

find itself snared by the loops. The two birds would

tumble to the ground.

 

Another method, Rafeeq and Mohammed said, was to tie a

pigeon or other small, tasty bird to the ground,

surrounded by a web of cotton loops.

 

Smugglers used Ariana Airlines, Afghanistan's national

carrier, to smuggle captured birds to Dubai, the

regional hub for the trade. Wealthy Arab sheikhs and

businessmen hunt with falcons as enthusiastically as

some Western tycoons race thoroughbreds. A top-quality

bird can go for more than $30,000, Rafeeq said. Mumtaz

Malik, the chief conservator for wildlife in the

region that includes Peshawar, said such prices can

reach $80,000.

 

The hunger for falcons in the United Arab Emirates and

neighboring countries appears to outweigh concerns for

the long-term survival of the birds. The Emirates'

restrictions on the trade of rare animals and plants

are minimal. The body that oversees the main global

treaty regulating trade in endangered species - called

by its acronym, CITES - recently recommended that

signatory nations cease trading in wildlife with the

Emirates.

 

Afghanistan long has been an even more hopeless case,

said John Sellar, a senior enforcement officer in

Geneva for CITES. (The body's full name is the

Convention on International Trade in Endangered

Species of Flora and Fauna.) " As far as we are aware,

Afghanistan has never implemented the convention

effectively " despite having signed it, he said. " We

are not aware of Afghanistan ever having engaged in

any legal trade. "

 

Malik said Pakistan allows a limited and licensed

trade of saker falcons, as is permitted under the

convention, but forbids all dealing in the rarer

peregrine falcons. But he acknowledged that alongside

the legal trade exists - or did exist, until October -

a very large smuggling operation in falcons. The

Pakistani authorities cannot prevent what dealers like

Rafeeq do inside Afghanistan.

2002, Newsday, Inc.

 

 

 

 

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