The 13 falcons, that were confiscated while being smuggled out of the country from Karachi airport, will now be microchipped today (Thursday) instead of Wednesday, said Colonel Ernest Shams of the Falcon Foundation. Col Shams told Pakistan Today that the falcons in order to undergo micro-chipping, a process which gives each bird an electronic identity chip, must be held by at least two specialised bird trainers, in order to decrease unnecessary stress. “The birds need to have rings on their feet and for this at least two trainers need to hold the bird. These rings will bear ID chips, whose data will be detected through a scanner,” he said. Unfortunately however the micro-chipping which was scheduled to be held on Wednesday November 30, had to be postponed because no such bird trainers were found.
“The birds can only be micro-chipped before they are fed,” said Col Shams. Microchipping allows birds to be tagged uniquely to prevent foreigners from replacing them with their ‘low quality’ birds. These falcons comprise several kinds of exotic birds including sagar and perigreen which are found in Mongolia, Turkmenistan and other cold northern areas. “The decision lies with the court, since the birds are its property at the moment, the chances are they will be eventually released into the wild,” said Col Shams. He also said the birds will always have a chance to be caught in Pakistan again however they could fly north too.
