Muhammad Rafiq was a teenager when he learned to catch live birds in Pakistan.
A talent that made his fortune, because the demand for falcons in the Gulf countries has never wavered, even for endangered species.
Just one of these raptors can sell for tens of thousands of dollars on the black market.
“Each season, vendors in Karachi leave their contact and we call them back if we catch something,” says the 32-year-old poacher.
Muhammad Rafiq, who lives in a nearby coastal village in Pakistan's economic capital Karachi, recently captured a peregrine falcon after a week of stalking.
“I needed this money so badly,” he explains.
For years, Pakistan has been the nerve center of the falcon trade, on the one hand as a breeding ground to obtain these birds, and on the other as a place to go hunting with its raptor.
The clients come mainly from Arab Gulf countries, for whom falconry is an old tradition.
While Dubai, an emirate of the United Arab Emirates, uses the image of the falcon to promote the city, Qatar, meanwhile, has held the S'hail International Falconry and Hunting Fair every year since 2017, where the awards of these animals can reach the sum of approximately € 22,000.
"Mackerel of the Arabs"
Capturing falcons is officially banned in Pakistan, but demand for raptors is increasing, according to the Pakistani branch of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
The organization estimates that 700 falcons were illegally captured and released from the country in 2020.
For decades, the Gulf States have granted Pakistan very generous loans, in particular while waiting for the capital of Islamabad to continue to let them hunt in the Pakistani deserts.
Islamabad also occasionally offers hawks to foreign leaders during visits.
"Our leaders are the pimps of the Arabs," denounces on condition of anonymity a Pakistani government official.
Wildlife protection organizations have appealed to the High Court in Islamabad to regulate the export of falcons.
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Bob Dalton, a longtime hawk protection activist, helped take care of dozens of raptors that were seized by Pakistani authorities in October, and whose cumulative resale value exceeded $ 1 million.
“The illegal trade is growing, there is more and more money being spent,” he says.
"With the exception of one or two species, most falcon populations are declining, or about to be."
