As winter bird
hunting season continues, many environmentalists are at a loss for words as to
how to prevent yet another illegal and unregulated hunting season.
Many
conservationists are claiming this hunting season to be the worst they have
witnessed to date.
Unregulated bird
hunting is nothing particularly new to Egypt, and has been taking place as far
back as most environmentalists can remember — the only significant decline
being when the Bird Flu scare hit Egypt.
Bird Flu aside,
hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of migratory birds are usually captured
every year as they pass through Egypt during the autumn and winter migratory
seasons, according to the last report from 2005 done by Nature Conservation
Egypt, BirdLife InternationalÂ’s domestic affiliate.
BirdLife
International is a global partnership of conservation organizations that focus
on birds, their habitats and global biodiversity.
However, since the
Egyptian revolution began, bird hunters returned with a vengeance — due to
harsh economic times, lack of security and political turbulence - and are now
blatantly entering protectorates to hunt, breaking many local laws and
international treaties in the process.
Trammel nets,
large double layered nets used to effectively capture flying birds, are left 24
hours a day during the hunting seasons while hunters roam locations armed with
guns. As a result, very few of the highly targeted birds, quails and ducks, are
to be seen in Egypt
south of its northern coastline.
During the autumn
season, where quails are the prime target, Egyptian rangers are usually able to
at least attempt to keep hunting out of the protectorates, as the majority of
migrating birds are land birds. But this winter, a time when migrant birds are
primarily water birds, like ducks, EgyptÂ’s protectorates are being
severely attacked.
When migrating in
the winter, waterbirds need to travel south by means of routes that ensure
large pools of water, making the northeast of Egypt - where Lake Burullus, Lake
Manzalla and Lake Bardawil are located – a primary route. These three lakes are
either completely or partly protectorates, or have Ramsar Convention protected
areas within them.
Ramsar is an intergovernmental
treaty that embodies the commitments of its member countries to maintain the
ecological character of their wetlands of international importance and to plan
for the sustainable use of all of the wetlands in their territories.
“Because the birds
migrate into the middle of these very large lakes, it is very dangerous for
unarmed rangers to go in and approach thousands of hunters with weapons and tells
them not to hunt,” says Mohamed El Maghraby, a ranger at Ashtoum El Gameel
protectorate, a 172 kilometer square protected area inside of Lake Manzalla.
The logistics of
the protectorates being in the middle of water makes an already serious
security vacuum a whole lot worse.
“They could just
attack us and throw us in the lake and no one would even notice, even the
police are too scared to do such a job,” he says.
Rangers from Lake Burullus
and Lake Baradwil share the same fears and
sentiments.
However, staging
an ambush is not exactly the desired method of prevention either, and most bird
specialists and rangers understand that during such times, issues of bird
hunting are secondary to the countryÂ’s ongoing political turbulence.
“It’s difficult
to raise issues about birds getting killed when the same thing is happening to
people,” says Sherif Baha El Din, co-founder of Nature Conservation Egypt. “The
solution is extremely complex, and honestly I wouldnÂ’t know how to prevent such
hunting without cooperation [across the board], which isn’t likely to happen.”
Meanwhile, this
season, many rangers find themselves sitting on the lakesÂ’ shorelines knowing
that the protectorates are being torn apart.
According to some
rangers, the lakes are covered with massive nets, with dead birds on sticks
inside to attract more birds, as well as speakers set up to mimic duck noises.
The hunting is so rampant that images of bats in nets are not uncommon.
“They’re catching
so much they don’t have time to remove everything,” says Maghraby, “so what
hunters want, they take, and the rest they just leave to die in the nets.”
Rangers told
Egypt Independent that each month they hand in monthly reports, which highlight
these issues, but are doubtful as to whether the reports are even looked at
these days.
A couple of years
ago, Wafaa Amer, the previous head of the Ashtoum al-Gameel protectorate, asked
Maghraby to write a report on his findings and propose solutions. However, by
the time MaghrabyÂ’s paper was completed, Wafaa Amer was no longer the head of
the protectorate and he believes the report still hasnÂ’t been looked at.
Solutions listed
in the report state that the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency, the
governmental body responsible for giving out hunting licenses, should reduce
the amount of licenses issued, coordinate better with rangers and
protectorates, establish minimal educational and preservation awareness, as
well as try to create financial alternatives for bedouins through ecotourism.
The last solution
being the most pressing, as the majority of hunted birds is sold to local
restaurants or merchants and is a primary source of income for many of EgyptÂ’s
bedouins.
However, Wed
Abdel Latif, a bird specialist with the EEAA, explains that given EgyptÂ’s diverse
demographics, unresolved territorial histories between the military, bedouins
and private landowners, as well as the ongoing political turbulence, it is
extremely difficult to create universal laws and regulations that apply to both
bedouins and wealthy sports hunters.
He adds that the
agency is also suffering from a lack of resources to provide alternatives, and that
given the ongoing political turmoil, these issues are bound to just fall by the
wayside.
“People are
starving now, licenses or not they will hunt,” he says. This is confirmed by
environmentalists who say sometimes hundreds of hunters will “share” the same
license. “It’s a situation which requires full cooperation and attention from
many different, opposing parties, and that is unlikely to happen now.”
Unfortunately,
environmentalists and rangers are aware of this, and hence many believe it is
likely that protectorates will be destroyed until Egypt comes under international
scrutiny, which will only further tarnish the countryÂ’s image.
“It’s just one of
many disastrous situations that are occurring on the sidelines while the
country tries to move forward,” says Maghraby. “By the time anything is done
there’ll be nothing left to protect.”