First published April 13, 2019.
In early 2019 an American hunter, Bryan Kinsel Harlan, paid 110,000 US dollars for a government permit to shoot an Astore markhor, a wild mountain goat with spectacular corkscrew horns, in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of northern Pakistan. The photo of him kneeling beside the dead animal caused outrage online. Yet the hunt was legal, part of a long-running, closely limited permit programme, and most of the fee went to local villages. Conservation groups credit that programme with helping the markhor recover. Here is how the system works and why it divides opinion.
What happened in February 2019
Harlan, a businessman from Texas, made the hunt in the mountains of Gilgit-Baltistan, home to the Astore subspecies of markhor. The price was reportedly a record for a markhor permit in Pakistan at the time. Pakistani media quoted him describing it as "an easy and close shot," and videos of the expedition showed him climbing steep terrain before the shot.
Harlan also praised the welcome he received, describing Pakistan as a safe and beautiful destination and encouraging other Americans to visit. That message was picked up by local social media users, as in the tweet below, while much of the international reaction focused on the photo itself.
US citizen #BryanHarlan who hunted an AstoreMarkhor few days ago at GB has said that Pakistan is more peaceful country than Mexico. if govt of Pak govt could put some investment in to tourism sector they could do great for this beautiful country.
— Tanveer Ahmed (@Mountain_Man007) February 7, 2019
Thank you #BryanKinselHarlan pic.twitter.com/91rd3rjghZ
The picture in this article shows Harlan kneeling behind the animal on a rocky slope, with snow-dusted peaks in the background. It is typical of trophy photography and, for many viewers, was hard to look at. Whatever one thinks of it, the circumstances behind the photo are more complicated than the backlash suggested.
Meet the markhor
The markhor (Capra falconeri) is a wild goat of the mountains of Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, and it is Pakistan's national animal. Its name is usually traced to Persian and is thought to mean something like "snake eater," a reference to folklore and perhaps to the twisting horns.
Both sexes have spiral horns, but the males' are extraordinary, reaching up to about 160 centimetres. The Astore markhor, the type Harlan hunted, has large, flat horns that flare widely and then rise in a loose spiral. Older males also grow a long, shaggy ruff of hair on the chest and neck, clearly visible in the photo.
Poaching is the main threat to the species. Habitat loss, disturbance and competition with domestic goats and other livestock for grazing add pressure, and in some places markhor have interbred with domestic goats.
Endangered or not? Correcting the record
Many viral posts in 2019 called the markhor "endangered" and blamed its decline partly on "unregulated" trophy hunting. Both claims need correcting.
- Status: In 2015 the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) moved the markhor from Endangered to Near Threatened on its Red List, because populations had grown, notably in Pakistan. The IUCN put the total at about 5,754 mature individuals.
- Regulation: The Harlan hunt was not unregulated. Hunters must buy a permit from Pakistan's wildlife authorities; hunting without one is illegal, and local guides will not take an unlicensed hunter out. NPR reported that only about a dozen markhor permits are issued each year.
- Geography: The sanctuaries and community conservation areas involved are in Pakistan, not in India, as some viral posts claimed.
How Pakistan's permit programme works
The idea is simple: make a living markhor worth more to the people who share its mountains than a dead one is to a poacher. Each year a small number of permits is auctioned or sold to foreign hunters, usually for older males that are past their prime breeding age. According to NPR, about 80 percent of the permit fee goes to the local village conservation committee, with the rest to the government wildlife department.
Communities use the money for things like schools, clinics and water supplies, and in return they employ game watchers and stop poaching in their valleys. The programme grew out of community conservation projects supported by the Global Environment Facility and the UN Development Programme, with advice from the IUCN; NPR reported that it began as a 3 million dollar project and was scaled up to 10 million dollars in 1997.
Shafqat Hussain, an anthropologist who once worked on the programme, summed up the local logic in an interview with NPR: villagers would rather a markhor bring in 110,000 dollars than a few days' worth of meat.
Has it worked?
By most published accounts, yes. NPR reported that the Astore markhor population in the programme areas was estimated at around 100 animals when the scheme started and had grown to roughly 1,200. An IUCN briefing paper said the programme has led to the recovery and substantial increase of markhor populations, and the IUCN's own downgrading of the species' threat level in 2015 cited growth in Pakistan.
The model is not unique. Similar community-based schemes for wild sheep and goats exist in Central Asia, and the debate over trophy hunting as a conservation tool also runs through Africa, from lions to rhinos.
The arguments on both sides
Supporters say the numbers speak for themselves: a handful of old males is taken each year, poaching drops, and remote communities get income they would not otherwise have. Without that money, they argue, there would be fewer markhor, not more.
Critics raise several concerns. Killing a charismatic animal for display is ethically troubling to many people, whatever the outcome. Revenue does not always reach communities fairly or transparently, and quota-setting depends on good population counts, which are hard in steep terrain. Some also argue that wealthy foreigners paying to kill a national symbol sends the wrong message, and that photo tourism or other funding could do the same job.
Both camps tend to agree on one point: the outcome depends on governance. Strict quotas, honest monitoring and real benefit for local people are what separate a conservation programme from a simple sale of trophies. The Harlan photo was a jolt for millions of viewers, but the story behind it is one of the better-documented cases of hunting money being used to protect a species, and a useful case study for anyone weighing the trade-offs.
Sources: NPR (via KPBS): A U.S. Hunter Paid $110,000 To Shoot A Pakistani Goat (February 2019); Wikipedia: Markhor; earlier coverage via Truth Theory. Tweet embedded from Tanveer Ahmed.
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