KAZAKHSTAN: The art of falconry is preserved as people in rural areas pass on this tradition from one generation to another

Record ID: 858756

  • Title: KAZAKHSTAN: The art of falconry is preserved as people in rural areas pass on this tradition from one generation to another
  • Date: 19th December 2011
  • Summary: NEAR ALMATY, KAZAKHSTAN (RECENT) (REUTERS) SUN SHINING OVER STEPPE MAN STANDING WITH GOLDEN EAGLE AND THROWING HIM GOLDEN EAGLE FLYING AND BEING CAUGHT BY ANOTHER MAN PEOPLE WATCHING VARIOUS YOUNG MAN WITH GOLDEN EAGLE MEN SITTING WITH GOLDEN EAGLES PERCHED BEHIND THEM VARIOUS BOY LAUNCHING GOLDEN EAGLE GOLDEN EAGLE FLYING MAN ON HORSEBACK STAGE WITH PEOPLE STANDING IN FRONT OF IT WOMEN STANDING AND SINGING KAZAKH NATIONAL ANTHEM WOMAN AND MAN WITH GOLDEN EAGLES MAN AND GOLDEN EAGLE GOLDEN EAGLES' TALONS (SOUNDBITE) (Kazakh) FALCONER YERKEBULAN MAMETOV, SAYING: "During famine this (golden eagle) has been hunting animals, Caucasian goats, roe, and provided the whole village with meat. Just one golden eagle (provided) the entire village. One can say that the entire generation (was fed by the golden eagle)".
  • Embargoed: 3rd January 2012 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan
  • City:
  • Country: Kazakhstan
  • Topics: Quirky,Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky,Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVAE0Y6IKGA0LAYED6JMZSRKMFQO
  • Aspect Ratio:
  • Story Text: "Sonr-2011", meaning in Kazakh, "newly fallen snow", was held recently, some 50 kilometres south of Kazakhstan's Almaty city in the Karasai district.
    The annual contest, organised by the Zhalaiyr Shora Falconry Centre, attracts dozens of falconers showing off their talents of bird training and hunting techniques, and enthusiasts who come to support the traditional pastime.
    Falconers show off routines in which they assign hooded golden eagles the task of hunting down prey and landing in their masters' hands at a specified distance to assess their vision and precision.
    In many Kazakh families in which falconry is the generational occupation, fathers pass the art on to their children as young as 7 or 8 years old. Women falconers are a rare sight at such competitions but they occasionally take part.
    One of the competitors Yerkebulan Mametov said falconry comes naturally to the competitors, because it is an activity that is passed down from their ancestors. And, he added, it was a valuable skill.
    "During famine this (golden eagle) has been hunting animals, Caucasian goats, roe, and provided the whole village with meat. Just one golden eagle (provided) the entire village. One can say that the entire generation (was fed by the golden eagle)," Mametov told Reuters.
    The chairman of the Zhalaiyr Shora Falconry Centre Bagdat Muptekekyzy said she would like to see more government support to preserve the tradition.
    "Our traditional art of wild bird hunting has been continuing through the ages until our time. Now the main thing (problem) is that we do not have a legal framework or laws that would develop our national sport," Muptekekyzy told Reuters.
    Eagle hunting was largely banned during Soviet rule and the tradition would have disappeared altogether had it not been doggedly preserved by ethnic Kazakhs in China and Mongolia. In the biggest blow, more than a million Kazakhs took their skills to their graves during a Soviet-inflicted famine in the 1930s when Josef Stalin's forced collectivisation campaign erased entire villages in Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Russia.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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