On the first day of the ninth Qatar International Falcons and Hunting Festival, which started yesterday and continues until January 27, participants showed good performance in the festival, which means that the coming days will be full of surprises.
Fifty-five participants took part in competitions yesterday. Falcons scored record time, breaking the 19-second barrier. A falcon owned by Nasser al-Humaidi nicknamed al-Jazira achieved a timing of 18 seconds and 92% in 400m.
Ten participants - Nasser Mohammed al-Humaidi, Abdullah Saeed al-Nuaimi, Salem Saad Munikhar, Saud Ateeq al-Buraidi, Khalid Rashid Aba al-Zamat, Mohammed Yousif al-Mannai, Hilal Saad al-Mohannadi, Musnad Ali al-Mohannadi, Abdullah Abdulhadi al-Marri and Ali Khaled al-Marri - qualified in this competition.
Ali bin Khatam al-Mahshadi, chairman, organising committee, and president, Al Gannas Association, said that the festival is the least we offer to our dear country and to the Qatari youth, especially hunters and falconers.
There are about 1,700 young people who took part in the festival and its tournaments, pointing out that other festivals organised during the year are qualifying for this big event.
Al-Mahshadi added that in the past they were using live houbara in the first year with 30 or 40 houbara, but now they replaced the live houbara in order to preserve the rare bird by electronic houbara used in previous experiments. “This idea was a success in order to preserve the houbara bird in the country, but after the emergence of production farms for the houbara in Qatar which contributed to increasing the production of these species, now we use live houbara instead of the electronic, because live Houbara is considered as the origin of hunting and contribute in enriching competitions.”
Mubarak Thamer al-Subaie, member, organising committee, said that the morning period on the first day of the festival was delayed due to heavy fog, in order to ensure the safety of the participants and to give the birds a chance to see the target clearly.
The ninth Qatar International Falcons and Hunting Festival is one of the largest falconry and hunting festivals in the region. It is characterised by strong competition and great public attendance from different GCC countries. (QNA)
