Flamingo Hunting in Iraq Continues Upward Trend
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Illegal flamingo poaching remains an issue in Iraq.
For many years, concerns have been raised over the hunting of flamingos in Iraq, particularly in the nation’s southern region. Last week, Iraqi police confiscated several flamingos that had been illegally captured during their migratory layover in the country, the most recent confirmation of the increase in flamingo trafficking in the area.
The practice has gained ground, and it has environmental activists worried. This same thing is not happening in other nearby nations, according to Raad Al-Asadi, who leads the Al-Jbayish Environmental Tourism Organization in Dhi Qar, a province in the southern half of Iraq.
“Elsewhere, people pay to watch flamingos in their natural habitat,” Al-Asadi told Shafaq News on Dec. 25, referencing protections granted to flamingos in other countries that turn the bird into a tourist draw rather than an object for poaching. “Here, they are hunted once they arrive.”
The marshes and waterways in southern Iraq along the Persian Gulf are popular destinations for flamingos. The pink birds utilize the area while migrating and in general as part of their nomadic lifestyle.
“They move when they need to find new food resources or nesting areas,” Paul Rose, a zoologist from the University of Exeter, told The New Arab in 2017. “They don’t have fixed flight paths or flyways, but move along a string of wetland sites that they know they can use.”
Flamingos particularly flock to the region during the winter months, facilitating greater hunting opportunities in that portion of the year.
What Happens to Hunted Flamingos?
Captured flamingos are often sold as meat at local markets. There is a status attached to eating flamingos, and the bird has grown in popularity as a meal. This is a newer phenomenon, according to quotes from Hassan Tawfiq, an academic from Baghdad.
“I still remember my childhood in Najaf, the birds also visited in the 1970s and 1980s, but no one then hunted or ate them,” Tawfiq said to The New Arab in 2017. “We must ask, therefore: what has changed?”
There are no official statistics confirming the increase in flamingo poaching in Iraq, but those in the know report a clear uptick. Bassam Muften, the head of the Farm Organization for Agricultural Development in Basra, a port city located near the Persian Gulf, said to Sharaq News that testimonies from hunters and activists insist that hundreds of flamingos are captured and killed each year in Iraq.
What Is Being Done?
Though there are laws on the books outlawing flamingo hunting, oversight is not so strict. Iraq has undergone immense government overhaul and consolidation in the last couple of decades, and its ministries have often had their hands full dealing with ISIS and other destabilizing forces operating within the nation’s borders. Flamingo protection is far from Iraq’s highest priority.
About a decade ago, several marshes in Iraq’s south were named UNESCO World Heritage sites, but that has not curbed flamingo hunting in the years since.
“(It’s) an embarrassment before the international community, as it shows Iraq is not committed to the UNESCO terms and pledges in regard to the marshes,” Sameera Abd Modi, director general of the Center for Restoration of Iraqi Marshlands at the Ministry of Water Resources said to Al-Monitor in 2017.
There is a divide among Iraqis over the flamingo question. To some, flamingo hunting is a reasonable practice that provides people with food and recreation. Detractors of flamingo hunting point to the ecological impact of removing flamingos from the environment, plus the prevalence of killing entire flamboyances of the bird rather than controlled amounts, which decimates the population and harms future reproduction. To many others living in the country, the well-being of flamingos is an afterthought - there are much more pressing matters at hand.
This is a blog dedicated to the love of flamingos. Of course, we are inclined to side with those fighting to protect the fabulous fowl. But life is not so simple - people need to eat, and what is considered acceptable in some countries or regions will be blasphemy in another. That doesn’t necessarily make one right and the other wrong, just different. Plus, for a nation that finds itself in the position that Iraq does, other priorities taking precedent does make sense.
But slaughtering entire flocks of flamingos is in nobody’s best interest. It harms the local environment, it promotes short-term exploitation of flamingos that will remove future generations’ ability to cultivate the bird for its resources long-term, and it does Iraq no favors on the international stage. Hopefully, more can and will be done in the country to promote the bird’s wellness and alter the style and prevalence of flamingo hunting.
