Lahore, Sep 13 (IANS) As in neighbouring India, vultures are facing extinction across Pakistan due to the increasing use of harmful chemicals and pesticides, while the falcon is threatened by hunting to meet demands from the Middle East, an expert says.
According to Zahid Baig Mirza, the extinction of vultures was being caused by the use of Diclofenac acid by veterinarians to treat animals.
The carcasses of such animals were thrown in the open where vultures fed on them and subsequently died, Zaidi said at a function at Kinnaird College to release his latest book “A Field Guide to Birds of Pakistan”.
Zaidi pointed out that vultures, as also migratory birds from Russia, were also dying after eating plants sprayed with pesticides.
The high price of falcons in the Middle East had given rise to their hunting in Pakistan, he said.
“It is everyone’s responsibility to save our ecosystem. Pakistani birds have always been neglected and because of that some of them were near extinction,” Daily Times Thursday quoted him as saying.
India has launched a campaign to revive its vulture population. Pakistan has yet to think of a similar programme.
Pakistan-WWF member Khalid Hameed Sheikh, who was among those present at the book launch, was questioned about falcon hunting by princes from the Middle East.
“It is the foreign office’s responsibility to stop the killings. Such people should not be issued visas,” he contended.
Mirza received the WWF International Award for Conservation Merit from Price Philip in 1982. In 1999 he received the President of Pakistan Award for Conservation Merit. In 2004, he was conferred the lifetime achievement award of the Pakistan Society for the Conservation of Wildlife (PSCOW).