CJ withdraws houbara bustard hunting ban

LAHORE: Lahore High Court Chief Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah has withdrawn ban on hunting houbara bustard and directed the registrar office to fix the petitions against the hunting permits issued to foreign dignitaries before an appropriate bench afresh.

The chief justice through a verbal order on Jan 25 on the basis of a report submitted by a local commission had stopped the hunting of houbara bustard invoking the precautionary principle. “However, at the time dictating the order, I have gone through the report of the Commission in detail and requires further clarification on this principle.

Therefore, the verbal order announced in the court is recalled and this case is fixed for hearing before an appropriate bench as the case management plan for Feb 8, 2018,” observed the chief justice in his written order. Advocates Sheraz Zaka and Naseem Sadiq had filed the petitions seeking a ban on the hunting of the internationally protected bird and cancellation of permits issued to foreign dignitaries.

The commission headed by Dr Pervez Hassan had in its report recommended a ban on the hunting to protect breed of houbara bustard. The commission in its report said the hunting of houbara bustard might endanger this rare species. It said the commission was not sure if the breed of the bird was under any serious threat of being vanished from the planet as no survey had so far been conducted to this effect.

The report disclosed that global population of houbara was estimated at 78,960 to 97,000 individuals in 2014. The population was expected to fall within 50,000-99,999 individuals, which was assumed to equate to 33,000-67,000 mature individuals.

It said the over-exploitation remained the foremost threat to the species, primarily as a result of unsustainable levels of hunting and poaching. It further said that the contemporary range of houbara extended from Egypt East of the Nile through Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Armenia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Mongolia to China, with unconfirmed reports from Azerbaijan and Turkey. The commission said disjointed and highly fragmented resident populations existed across the Middle East into Pakistan, most notably in Iran, Egypt and Israel. It urged the court to restrain the govt from issuing hunting permits for houbara bustard until Dec 2018.