A rare species of sheep discovered by Marco Polo in the 13th century is edging closer to extinction due to increased trophy hunting in Central Asian countries, new research reports.
The species, once prominent in the Pamir Mountains on the border of China, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan, now numbers around 10,000, according to George Schaller of the Science and Exploration Program of the Wildlife Conservation Society.
While political and economic troubles in the area have put the sheep at risk, researchers believe hunting by European and North American trophy hunters has put the species on edge. Unfortunately for the animal, they’re donned with enormous and ornate horns that make them a target of wealthy hunters. Companies like Alaska Hunting Safaris sell trips to kill the sheep for $35,000.
The companies advertising the hunts only pay around $6 for a permit to hunt the sheep and take advantage of notoriously corrupt agencies in charge of regulating the permits. The trophy hunters are well-aware that the species is near extinction, but seemingly do not care.
[Via: Young Turks]
This article is FALSE! Hunting for international hunters was reopened around 1987 through Intourist the USSR’s department of travel. Hunting for these sheep was very limited until the mid 1990s under strict limitations of the number of licensee issued per season.In 2009 hunting in Tajikistan was closed due to the country not having accurate statistics of the sheep population. In 2009 the Tajik government conducted a population survey of these sheep with the help of many international organizations and agencies. At the beginning of 2010 hunting there was reopened due to the healthy sheep population. These sheep are classified as CITES II. Therefore hunting is STRICTLY regulated. It isn’t the hunters that threaten the declining number of Marco Polo sheep. It is poaching, the ILLEGAL hunting of these sheep by locals and by wolves eating lambs.
JUST READ A STORY ABOUT MARCO POLO SHEEP. IT SEEMS THAT THE LOCALS ARE ALREADY RESTRICTING THE HUNTING UNTILL THE HERDS BUILD BACK UP. FUNNY HOW THEY DID THIS WITHOUT GV’T FUNDING OR HELP FROM THE TREE HUGGERS.
How deplorable that these endangered sheep are hunted solely for the purpose of having its head or other body parts on someone’s trophy wall. What’s even sicker are the companies who profit from such unnecessary killing, all in the name of money.