Hunting bans bid to protect Saudi Arabia’s threatened animals

Predators and birdlife on the list of new regulations designed to restore Arabia’s ecological balance

Saudi Arabia is moving to reintroduce endangered species such as the Arabian leopard and the Arabian oryx to its traditional heartlands. But will one of the big factors in their demise – hunting – threaten their survival in the wild?

The country’s National Centre for Wildlife has now introduced a ban on hunting animals seen as critical to resortring the region’s ecological balance.

Predators are now protected with an outright ban. They include leopards, wolves, hyenas, wolves, jackals, lynxes, sand cats, common genets and honey badgers.

As well as hunting for sport, predators are frequently poisoned and shot by farmers protecting their growing herds of camels and goats.

The ownership of poisons and guns will be closely limited and traced as the NCW seeks to reintroduce predators, whose return to the landscape is also expected to control ‘nuisance’ species such as baboons.

Arabian leopards: huge fines for illegal hunters (David Chancellor)

Hunting endemic birds in the Kingdom is also prohibited, in addition to ungulates, including the Arabian oryx, the sandy-colored goitered antelope, the mountain gazelle and the Nubian ibex.

Successful releases of ungulates into the wild have recently taken place in the national reserves of Neom and AlUla. It is reported that three generations of oryx now roam free. The hunting ban is designed to further secure their future. In the next decade, it is hoped that their number will be sufficiently strong to allow the return of natural predators such as the leopard.

The ban will be enforced by a network of rangers and airborne surveillance. And while it is highly unlikely any hunters will encounter a leopard in the wild, the penalties for killing them are severe – 400,000 Saudi Riyals (over £92,800).

That said, Saudi’s conservationists hope that it’ll be education rather than enforcement that ensures the return of endemic wildlife after decades of persecution.

To find out more about the Saudi Green Initiative, visit greeninitiatives.gov.sa/about-sgi/