Saving Rare Birds in Order to Kill Them

Artificial insemination, man-made rain, computers and satellite identification tags are among high-tech tools used by researchers trying to revive a declining bird population.

And all this is to save the birds so they can be hunted. The birds--houbara bustards--are the most prized quarry in Arab falconry, a sport revered by the wealthy sheiks of the Persian Gulf.

The birds are being studied and bred at the National Avian Research Center, which opened in the emirate of Abu Dhabi in 1990 and is a pet project of Emirates ruler Sheik Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, an avid falconer.

The center is run by a team of international specialists, some of whom admit privately they are happy to have oil money to save the houbara bustard but are less dedicated to the center’s other goal: encouraging falconry.

Using costly, sophisticated gear, the center studies every detail of the houbara, a bird about the size of a large chicken that is brown and gray with dark neck feathers.

Twenty houbaras are housed in desert aviaries, where researchers study their reproduction in a natural habitat. Scientists monitor the mating behavior of 20 more houbaras being kept in artificial conditions at the center’s Environment House in Sweihan, east of Abu Dhabi, the Emirates’ capital.

Derek Gliddon, a geographic systems analyst, follows color dots on a computer screen that show movements of tagged birds--15 have been released by the center since 1994--over the course of their migration.

“When they start moving, they go very quickly,” said Gliddon, a 33-year-old Briton, pointing to the route on a map.

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The tagged houbaras wear tiny backpacks that hold satellite transmitters. Each weighs 1.2 ounces and costs $3,000, plus $2,000 to run for a year.

The transmitters beam signals 620 miles to three orbiting satellites, which calculate the birds’ position from space and send the data to a computer in France.

The houbaras inhabit an area stretching from the Canary Islands in the west to China in the east. They migrate to the gulf between November and February, the hunting season.

Conservationists say without such a sophisticated project the houbara bustard is certain to disappear because the gulf sheiks, who have hunted the birds with falcons for 2,000 years, are unlikely to stop.

Olivier Combreau, an ecologist at the center, says the winter population of houbaras in the region could be fewer than 1,000. By contrast, there are 10,000 falconers in the region, according to estimates provided by David Remple, founder of the Dubai Falcon Hospital.

It’s difficult to get a firm picture of the houbaras’ decline because no studies were done on past migrations. But, according to poachers, the birds are in noticeable decline.

Farming and use of pesticides in the birds’ breeding grounds have contributed to the drop in numbers, but the major reason is over-hunting--mainly because the sheiks giving chase have switched from camels to four-wheel-drives.

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In the past, a party of hunters would pursue bustards across the desert for weeks or months, tracking their prints in the sand. Today, as before, the falcon perches on the falconer’s wrist, which is protected by a glovelike mangela.

Once a hood covering the falcon’s head is removed, the falcon is trained to attack with its claws and beak to break the prey’s neck, then drop the kill on the ground before the hunter. As a quarry, the houbara bustard is prized by gulf Arabs for its rich, dark meat.

The falcon is such a part of gulf heritage that it’s the Emirates’ symbol. Arab poets use the falcon as an image for strength and speed; it can fly at more than 100 mph.

British traveler and author Wilfred Thesiger gives a picture of the traditional hunt in his writing about desert trips in the 1940s and ‘50s with Sheik Zayed, the Emirates’ ruler.

“For months or more, we rode for long hours on superb camels, slept on the ground in the open, fed on the hares and the bustards we had taken--half a dozen in one day if we were lucky--an exacting and rewarding experience in confronting an immemorial past.”

At the research center, spokeswoman Theri Bailey said the breeding of houbaras to be killed as prey does not contradict conservationist values.

“We see the potential for conservation . . . if the hunting was managed properly,” Bailey said.

“Arab people need to move toward the right direction. If you are their friends, advisors, it’s better to work with them than throwing mud at them from the outside.”

One environmentalist at the center, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he would prefer to free the houbaras to enjoy a long life. But, he added, “We must please the sheiks.”

“It’s a sensitive subject. We cannot tell the sheiks they cannot hunt. They will if they want to. But we can utilize their money to understand the ecology in order to protect the houbara,” he said.

Sheik Zayed, the center’s benefactor, has described bustard-hunting as a meditating experience.

“Our hunting trips accustom us to patience and endurance,” he wrote recently. “We regard them as a means of achieving a degree of psychological equilibrium between sedentary urban life and that of the desert. The simple happiness this sport brings us fortifies us against the stresses and strains of our official duties.”