No Nepali at Dhorpatan for hunting

Despite the Dhorpatan Hunting Reserve allowing Nepalis for hunting this season, no Nepali visited the Reserve for shooting.

For the first season of this year, the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation had fixed 11 quotas of wild boars for hunting.

Chief Conservation Officer of Dhorpatan Hunting Reserve Birendra Prasad Kandel said that no one arrived here for hunting though three hunting enthusiasts had participated in the tender bidding process.

“More time could have been consumed due to procedural delay for being the first practice. Also, information dissemination on boar hunting remained slow. Timely preparations and initiatives are deemed necessary to attract Nepalis for boar hunting from upcoming seasons,” Kandel stated.

Hunting in the Reserve is allowed to the limited ones after a selection process through bidding competition.

Likewise, legal hunting of Himalayan blue sheep (Naur) and Himalayan Tahr (Jharal) twice a year is allowed in the Reserve.

Kandel viewed that hunting of wild boar is allowed for Nepalis to promote internal tourism through hunting as hunting of Naur and Jharal is costly and Nepalis cannot afford it.

He also observed that systematic hunting of wild boar will result in harmonious relations of local residents and Reserve.

The wild boars destroy the farmers’ crops and hunting would help control to some extent. “The State would also makes revenue income from legal hunting,” according to the Chief Conservation Officer.

Though the quota of the wild boar for hunting is fixed 22 in a year, the number could be varied for the upcoming season as even a single boar was hunted, Kandel said.

In the first season of this year, seven Naur and five Jharal were hunted, Information Officer of Reserve Abinash Thapa Magar said.

Four Americans, two Mexicans and a Canadian and a German hunted those Naur and Jharal, Thapa Magar said.

Dhorpatan is a popular destination for amateur and lavish international hunting enthusiasts.

Spread in highlands and mountainous areas of Baglung, Myagdi and Rukum districts, this Reserve is the only Wildlife Hunting Reserve in the country established four decades ago.