Extinction of Russian dove feared due to excessive hunting in Hazara.

HARIPUR -- Population of Russian dove is declining fast as its illegal hunting goes on unchecked in different parts of Hazara division, a source told Dawn here on Wednesday.

The brown-dark brown-white dove is a migratory bird that travels from Siberia and Russia to parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Gilgit-Baltistan every year and stays for about one and half month during pre-breeding season of April and May.

These birds return back with their young chicks during September and October after spending the breeding period from June to August preferably in GB and AJK as the weather of the regions suit their natural habitat.

Since the KP's wildlife department allows the licensed hunters to hunt the bird from the pigeon family it's becoming fast extinct during its stay twice a year.

However, thesource said owing to poor monitoring mechanism the hunters, most of them having no valid licence, hunt this migratory bird excessively.

'I've seen a hunter carrying over three dozen hunted doves,' said a villager from Ghazi tehsil, who also shared some pictures of the excessively-hunted birds. He said during weekly day-offs and public holidays the hunters thronged the areas where the doves prefer to stay during April and May and hunted them in dozens.

'There used to be flocks of Russian doves locally called Chambi hovering over the Tarbela Lake and neighbouring localities but merciless hunting in connivance with wildlife and police departments has reduced the population of this beautiful bird considerably,'' lamented another villager.

The source disclosed that though hunting for a licensed hunter was not prohibited there was hardly any mechanism to check how many and for how many times a hunter had hunted the birds. Likewise, he said apart from local hunters a good number of hunters, especially from influential families from Islamabad and...