14 DAY TRIAL // A Saudi prince is now getting loads of negative media attention, and it is all thanks to rumors that he killed nearly 2,000 rare birds while on a safari in Pakistan earlier this year, in January.
Information shared with the public says that the Saudi prince's name is (drums, please) Fahd bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud. According to Huffington Post, the birds that he killed belong to a species known as the houbara bustard.
The fact that the Saudi prince shot and killed 2,000 such birds would not have been such a big issue had it not been for the fact that this species benefits from legal protection under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
In fact, it appears that hunting such birds is not allowed by Pakistani law. Still, it sometimes happens that Arab dignitaries are granted permission to kill them. By the looks of it, it was one such hunting permit that Prince Fahd bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud received and made use of.
The problem is that, whereas Pakistani hunting permits only allow dignitaries to kill up to 100 houbara bustards in certain chosen areas, the Saudi prince shot a total of 1,977 birds belonging to this species, some of which in reserved and protected regions.
For the time being, it is unclear whether Prince Fahd bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud will be made to pay for his having violated the hunting permit he got from Pakistan's government, or if maybe authorities will choose to let this one slide.
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, there are now about 110,000 houbara bustards left in the wild. Their meat is believed to be an aphrodisiac and is highly sought after. Hence, the species risks going extinct as a result of overhunting.