WWF organizes seminar in Islamabad on Houbara Bustard conservation

| Omar AsifApr 14, 2025

• https://www.samaa.tv/2087331760-only-35-indian-houbara-bustards-left-in-pakistan-wwf-raises-alarm#google_vignette

Indian Houbara Bustard in Pakistan

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A seminar on the conservation of the endangered houbara bustard was held in Islamabad under the auspices of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), where participants called for improved policies to ensure the protection and breeding of the species.

WWF officials expressed concern over the declining population of houbara bustards in Pakistan, especially the Indian houbara, which now has only 35 individuals remaining in the country. They noted that the government lacks comprehensive data on the various species of houbara present in Pakistan.

The experts stressed the urgent need for a clear policy on both the hunting and breeding of the houbara. They further pointed out that other endangered species, such as the blackbuck and the Indus dolphin, are also at risk of extinction.

WWF experts emphasized that with proper scientific research and governmental commitment, effective conservation of houbara bustards and other wildlife species can be achieved.

Nagarparkar Residents Protest Illegal Hunting of Deer

Citizens in the Nagarparkar tehsil staged a protest against the illegal hunting of deer and the inaction of the Sindh Wildlife Department.

Residents expressed concern that local wildlife is at the mercy of poachers, with no protective measures in place. They reported that just two days ago, unidentified hunters brazenly killed and took away two deer in broad daylight.

Protesters criticized the Wildlife Department for failing to take any action, warning that such negligence is putting vulnerable species at risk.

They demanded immediate intervention, calling on authorities to take notice of the hunting incidents, punish those responsible, and protect the region’s wildlife.

BOISE, Idaho—The Biden administration defended the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services’ actions in Idaho in a letter Tuesday after the agency preemptively killed eight wolf pups from Idaho’s Timberline pack in response to complaints from a rancher grazing livestock on public lands.

“We are shocked that the Biden administration condones the slaughter of weeks-old wolf pups on public lands at the behest of private livestock interests,” said Talasi Brooks of Western Watersheds Project. “Wolves — especially wolf pups — pose no significant threat to livestock.”

Conservation groups learned that Wildlife Services started pursuing the pack in May when an agent killed the first three pups at the den site. The agency killed five more pups over the next two months. The groups urged USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack to stop Wildlife Services from slaughtering weeks-old wolves on public lands.

In his Oct. 5 response letter, Secretary Vilsack rejected the request, stating that killing wolf pups is a “humane management option.”

“The mission of Wildlife Services is ‘to improve the coexistence of people and wildlife’, not killing defenseless puppies in their den, especially when there are so many effective nonlethal alternatives,” said Suzanne Asha Stone, director of the International Wildlife Coexistence Network based in Idaho. “We are deeply disappointed in this administration’s response.”

High school students at Timberline High School in Boise were devastated when they learned that Wildlife Services killed the Timberline pack’s pups. The school adopted the pack as its mascot when the school was founded in 1998.

“It’s disheartening to see the USDA justifying killing our pack’s innocent pups as ‘humane management.’ The data from Idaho’s Wood River Wolf Project study should’ve been enough to persuade politicians of the efficacy of nonlethal methods, yet the USDA and Biden administration continue to practice inaction,” said Michel Liao, a Timberline High School student. “It’s this very passivity that’s allowing people to eradicate all the pups from Timberline High School’s wolf pack this year on our public lands. It must stop.”

“We tell our students that science is key in wildlife management, yet scientific evidence tells us that killing or disturbing stable wolf packs leads to more livestock conflicts, not less, and it undermines our native ecosystems,” said Dick Jordan, Timberline High School science advisor. “We expect more from the Biden administration and our Department of Agriculture. Killing wolf pups is not humane by any sense of the word. And doing so while Idaho is working to eradicate its wolf population is supporting the state’s new war on wolves.”

Secretary Vilsack’s letter yesterday confirms that Wildlife Services will continue these unscientific and inhumane activities.

“All wolf killing is predicated on a lie that wolves cause significant livestock deaths,” said Brooks Fahy, executive director of Predator Defense. “They don’t. Wolves cause only a fraction of a percent of livestock deaths. And here Secretary Vilsack is compounding the travesty of this misnamed USDA program called ‘Wildlife Services’ by defending the killing of even pups. It is painfully obvious that Wildlife Services has fully embraced the cruel and self-serving demands of ranchers in Idaho. Americans should be outraged.”

“It’s disturbing to see state and federal officials openly supporting the killing of wolf pups. There is no scientific rationale for such barbaric measures,” said Andrea Zaccardi, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “With new laws clearly intended to decimate our wolf population, Idaho has launched a war against wolves that seems to have no limits to its cruelty.”

“The Biden administration’s response to our groups’ concerns was alarming, and the action that the administration stands behind is hideous,” said Katie Bilodeau with Friends of the Clearwater. “There are nonlethal wolf-predation deterrents that scientific testing has shown to be effective. Instead, federal and state officials chose the extreme and dubious alternative of killing pups in hopes that the parents would leave. We are grieved at the inhumane violence that federal and state officials dealt towards a social, family-based species like the wolf.”

“Killing these wolf pups was inhumane, unscientific and indefensible,” said Joe Bushyhead with WildEarth Guardians. “Wolves face enough persecution in Idaho already at the hands of the state. The Biden administration should not be using federal resources to make a bad situation even worse.”

The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.7 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.

Incident follows March 15 shooting of wolf by federal authorities

By Max Levy | mlevy@denverpost.com | The Denver Post

UPDATED: April 12, 2025 at 11:58 AM MDT

A male gray wolf collared by Colorado Parks and Wildlife was reported dead in Wyoming this week, according to the agency, which did not comment on the circumstances of the animal’s death.

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The wolf was one of 15 relocated from Canada to Colorado in January and is the second of that group to die recently in Wyoming. Four weeks ago, federal authorities shot and killed a wolf that was suspected to have preyed on five sheep in north-central Wyoming.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife wrote in a news release Friday that it became aware of the latest death Wednesday and worked with Wyoming Game and Fish to retrieve the wolf’s tracking collar.

CPW spokesperson Travis Duncan referred questions about the incident to Wyoming Game and Fish, which could not be reached for comment Saturday. In its news release, the Colorado agency wrote that “Wyoming state law prevents further detail from being shared.”

“Wolves are known to travel long distances to find food or mates, including into other states,” the agency wrote. “CPW does not comment on wildlife movements, operations or regulations in other states.”