>falconry is the rich-sheik status symbol. no hobby, a hierarchy >and at the absolute top of every tier list sits one bird: the Kazakh saker >versatile, incredibly intelligent, a genuine apex hunter >26,000 USD per bird, and that's the floor >there is no saker in Saudi Arabia >so they bribe Kazakh shepherds to trap them off the nest >then bribe the customs and the airport officials to walk the crates out >crate, blanket, rubber band on the beak, VIP gate, Riyadh >repeat for 30 years >population in Kazakhstan down 80% >uplisted to Endangered. a bird that has been an apex predator since the ice age, now a line item >some guy in Jeddah has 60 of them on air-conditioned perches eating quail like tiny pharaohs >and plenty of them die in transit, in the socks and the crates, before they ever see the Gulf
>and the reason for all of it? not meat. not need. a sport >they're flown at houbara bustards for fun, and the houbara is collapsing too, so the prey is going down with the predator >hunting used to be a chore, a job, a food source. it had a reason
