[🇵🇰] Wildlife in Pakistan

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Members of IFHC receive a tour of a houbara rehabilitation centre in Rahim Yar Khan

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Documenting Sindh's dwindling birdlife –
frame by frame

Mirza Naim Beg

Long legged buzzard perched on a rocky outcrop at DHA Phase 8 - PHOTO COURTESY: MIRZA NAIM BEG


KARACHI: After having served for years as a banker, Mirza Naim Beg has now dedicated his life to wildlife photography and bird watching.

Beg shares with The Express Tribune his concerns over the loss of birdlife in Sindh.

According to the bird guide, ‘Birds of Pakistan’ there are around 750 bird species in the country but Beg and his birders have been able to document many species which have not been photographed previously.

Black Rumped Flameback Woodpeckers are found across Sindh and have been recorded from Kathore, Haleji Lake and Mirpur Sakro. – PHOTO COURTESY: MIRZA NAIM BEG

Beg recalls, how he alone had recorded more than 275 species across the country and around 180 only from Sindh.

“We have been able to photograph a lot of new bird additions for Sindh such as the sandwich tern, bar tailed godwit, dunlin, blue-cheeked bee-eater, reed warbler, short-toed snake eagle, yellow-eyed babbler, Spanish sparrow, Macqueen’s bustard, rock sparrow and little tern,” adds Beg.

Common Kestrel, is a bird of prey species that hunts voles, insects and small birds. It is a winter migrant, most commonly recorded in the Western hills of Sindh. PHOTO COURTESY: MIRZA NAIM BEG

In hopes of raising awareness about birdlife of Sindh and its conservation, Beg suggests authorities should establish new bird sanctuaries because there are hardly any in the country.

“I’ve been able to photograph a lot of rare birds near my residence in the Defense Housing Authority, Phase 8. Birds such as the yellow wattled lapwing, grey francolin and long-legged buzzard are rare species which will disappear forever,” he fears.

Yellow-footed green pigeon is a species of green pigeon that is mostly found near forested areas. It has been recorded from Kathore, Mirpur Sakro and Haleji Lakes – PHOTO COURTESY: MIRZA NAIM BEG

“I hope a sanctuary is created near the DHA Phase 8 graveyard where there is a lot of scrub and trees left for these birds but I see that our authorities only make false promises and rampant development of new housing projects continues,” he adds.

Beg further blames illegal hunting for affecting the bird population.

“But we have successfully informed the local police department and they have actively bird hunters”.

Threatened Cinereous vulture (left) and Eurasian Griffon vulture (right) are winter migrants photographed here near Kathore – PHOTO COURTESY: MIRZA NAIM BEG

Haleji Lake, he says, was once the largest freshwater lake in Asia home to around 1.5 to 2 million migratory birds. But in just 15 years the freshwater in the lake has been largely contaminated leaving only flocks of cormorants around the lake.

Beg shares fond memories of how three years ago when he started photography in the backwaters of Port Qasim around the power plant, he was able to find a flock of over 300 flamingos which visited the lush green creeks.

 

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Documenting Sindh's dwindling birdlife – frame by frame

Long legged buzzard perched on a rocky outcrop at DHA Phase 8 – PHOTO COURTESY: MIRZA NAIM BEG

“But today due to reclamation projects and pollution, flamingo numbers are so reduced that only in May, I spotted a flock of around only 50 flamingos in the same area which use to have hundreds,” he adds.

Beg’s team has also discovered a ‘birding paradise’ in Kathore where they have photographed species rarely seen or found elsewhere in Sindh, including Asian paradise flycatcher, black-naped oriole, cream-coloured courser, cinereous vulture and steppe eagle.

A flock of Greater flamingo lands near a mangrove creek of Port Qasim – PHOTO COURTESY: MIRZA NAIM BEG


But Beg hasn’t lost hope. He says people are increasingly getting more aware of the need to save their wildlife and our group ever-growing membership proves.

“In order to educate and create more public awareness about wildlife conservation and photography, I am planning to showcase more such exhibitions and lecture at our local schools and colleges because I genuinely believe that photography is the best way to save species.”

Baya weaver is a weaverbird mostly found near wetlands, they have been recorded from Haleji lakes, Gadap area and Mirpur Sakro – PHOTO COURTESY: SALMAN BALOCH


Over the past three years, Beg has gained immense popularity for organising wildlife tours and photography trips through his own Karachi-based tour agency called ‘Dream Merchant Studio’ which now has over 40 active members and over 200 wildlife photographers associated with it.

Birders save an injured bird –


Besides this Beg maintains an active Facebook group of around 1,601 members called ‘Birds Of Sindh’ that provides a platform for aspiring bird watchers to network and amateur wildlife photographers to showcase their work, the inspiration of this platform was the 9,591 members strong Facebook group called ‘Birds of Pakistan’ which motivated Beg to pursue photography in the first place.

 

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Chukar Partridge

Spotted Owlet -

Bar-headed Goose

Falcon with prey

 

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Wild Dogs
These are members of family Canidae, order Carnivora. These are characterized by having digits on forelimbs, of which the first one is vestigial, hind feet possess four digits, claws non retractile, external pinna pointed, tail long and bushy, no stripes or spots are found on the body. The two familiar species found in Pakistan are Canis lupus, the wolf and Canis aureus, the jackel.

The wolf is comparatively larger in size than the jackel, males measures upto 65cm while females about 50cm at shoulder, coloration varies from place to place, body usually covered with thick greyish or grizzled colour hairs. Found in the mountainous regions of Pakistan, being very common in Cholistan and Tharparkar district.

The jackels are found throughout Pakistan in mountainous areas, forest plantations and riverline thickets. Its narrow head and pointed muzzles are fox-like but other physical features are doglike. The haircoat is grizzled tawny buff colour, tips of bushy tail is black, maximum height is 45 to 50cm.

 

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Hingol Park,,

 

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Snow leopards

Snow leopards have been forced to the edge of extinction by hunting and human encroachment and are now one of the world's most endangered animals. In the far north of Pakistan, locals have long feared them but find themselves now relying on money that saving snow leopards brings in. What is it like living alongside a ferocious predator? M Ilyas Khan finds out.

Substantial investment programmes are in place to help preserve these rare animals which, though rare and beautiful, present a serious threat to livestock.

"These are pastoral communities with heavy dependence on livestock, and a carnivore's presence scares them," said Dr Ali Nawaz of Quaid-e-Azam University who supervises an internationally-funded snow leopard programme in Pakistan.


A hairy encounter

• Some 4,000 to 6,000 worldwide; between 200 and 400 in Pakistan
• Native to the mountains of Central and South Asia, their range stretches over more than 80,000 sq km (31,000 square miles) in Pakistan's extreme north
• Mostly feed on wild animals, but livestock is also fair game
• Retaliatory killings by farmers are not uncommon but are rarely reported

But despite all these efforts and interventions, livestock still remains central to an economy which has not yet moved beyond the subsistence level.

And this entails a continuing conflict between humans and wild predators - every year there are reports of livestock damaged by snow leopards, and of snow leopards being shot or poisoned to death by angry farmers.

"Retaliatory killings are a knee-jerk reaction, and they continue to happen because even the community, which may disapprove of it, tries to cover it up to avoid trouble with the authorities and the donors," said Dr Nawaz.

"By comparison, the population of wild mountain goats has decreased by at least 50%, and nearly half of their ranges have been lost to livestock and farming."

Pakistan is still home to between 200 and 400 snow leopards, Dr Nawaz says, but sustaining this population will require a massive effort of the international community at what he calls the "landscape level".

In this setting, the policemen and the wildlife rangers posted in remote valleys act as a stabilising factor in relations between communities and conservationists.

Snow Leopard Foundation (SLF)

A non-profit organization set up under section 42 of the companies Ordinance 1984 with Securities & Exchange Commission of Pakistan.

Affiliated with the Snow Leopard Trust, USA, the SLF is dedicated to conserve viable populations of snow leopards and other wild carnivores as an integral part of landscapes across Pakistan.

 

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Bears

Heavily built animals with large rounded heads, protractible lips, short tail, short rounded ears, plantigrade feet, digits armed with long non-retractile claws, cheek teeth being tuberculate and there are carnassials, sense of smell very acute, chiefly vegetarian in diet, feed mostly on fruits, honey and ants, sucks up ants from their hills, occasionally kill sheep and goats, usually comes out at night, breed once a year.

The two species of bear found in Pakistan and Ursus arctos, the brown or red bear and Selenarctos thietanes, the black bear. The red or brown bear is restricted to alpine meadows and subalpine scrub forests of Chitral, Gilgit, Baltistan and Hazara division.

Population is very sparse. Body is covered with dense reddish brown fur. It is comparatively larger in size than black bear.