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part 1
Last November, 80 falcons left the Mongolian steppes forever, their wings bound and eyes shut with leather covers. Onboard a special charter flight, they headed to the palaces of Arab sheikhs in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, to the freedom of hunting an occasional desert fox. The price of their freedom was U.S. $3 million in credit for development projects pledged by the Saudi Arab Emirates and Kuwait. «It's a political issue,» says Mr. Banzragch convincingly, an official from the Ministry of Environmental Protection. «We received repeated requests through official channels at the Ministry of External Relations.» On top of such official deals, the illegal trade flourishes. In 1997, 26 attempts of illegal smuggling were stopped by customs. This year, the harvest of smuggled birds reached 56. In one case, 14 birds were uncovered just prior to the plane taking off. According to Alan Parrot, an American falcon expert, the annual trade turnover exceeds $40 million. «It is second only to arms and drugs,» says Mr. Alan Parrot. As a teenager he developed a life-long passion for birds because of his famous grandfather-ornithologist. At 18, he was already looking after falcons for the Iranian Shah, and ever since, he has pursued falcons in different capacities - first as a trainer, then a trader, then a police informant of illegal smuggling of endangered species. In 1993, while on an Interpol undercover mission to Kazakhstan, he first learned about falcons leaving Mongolia. Two years later, he approached the Ministry of Environmental Protection of Mongolia with an offer to buy birds from Mongolia at a stake prize, and in so doing, diminish the volume of illegal trade. «I gave them all the information on where, how much and how,» he says. «This turned out to be my major mistake. The former Ministry of Environment, Batzhargal, promised to report it to the Government, but as I learned later, nothing has been done. On the contrary, they learned all the tricks of the trade and decided to use the knowledge for their own benefit.» In 1994, the former minister struck a deal with Abdul Latif Al Minda, an emissary of a Saudi Arabian prince, to buy 800 falcons over a 10-year period for a total price of $2.2 million. «Mongolian falcons are more prized nowadays because they have natural hunting skills that cannot be developed in a falcon breeding farm. At these farms only one out of ten birds can match a Mongolian one,» says Alan Parrot. According to some media reports rich sheikhs are willing to pay as much as $200,000 for the best falcons. «What happened is that Mongolian high officials formed a small ring of smugglers. Mongolia has now turned into the world center in the illegal trade of rare birds.»
Falcon Hunting Season: part 1 | part 2 | The White Falcon of the Mongols | Falcon Facts |
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