Falcons and hunting festival kicks off in Doha

Doha: On the first day of the 9th 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.
In all, 55 participants took part in yesterday’s competitions, 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 percent in 400 meters.
Ten participants qualified in this competition, 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.
The Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the 9th Qatar International Falcons and Hunting Festival and President of Al Gannas Association Ali Bin Khatam Al Mahshadi told QNA that this 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 organized 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 this bird by electronic houbara used in previous experiments and during the period of seven years of the festival and 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 of birds, now we use live houbara instead of the electronic, because live Houbara is considered as the origin of hunting and contribute in enriching competitions.
Member of the Organizing committee of the festival Mubarak Thamer Al Subaie 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 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.