Qatar building falcon center in Xinjiang: protection or poaching?

(ECNS) – The planned construction of a falcon breeding center by Qatar has sparked questions on their motives.

The Qatar Ecological Protection and Birds Society is to pump in $15 million over three years to build China's first raptor center in Altai in Xinjiang Autonomous Region. The center aims to breed and set free 200 falcons and 1,500 Houbara Bustard each year.

Falconry is an important part of the Arab culture. Statistics show Arab countries import up to 8,000 falcons from other countries each year.

However, the legal export quota is substantially lower than that, leading to falcon poaching and smuggling from countries including China.

Some say setting up a falcon breeding center would help protect falcons using advanced breeding technology from Qatar.

Not everyone agrees, however.

Some people are worried that inadequate supervision may lead to the center being used as a hunting ground, and could encourage smuggling and illegal hunting.

To breed 200 falcons a year requires at least 400 falcons to start with. Some suspect these falcons would come from smuggling.

Also, setting free the falcons means exposing these birds to the danger of being illegally hunted.

So far, none of the parties involved has responded to media inquiries.