They hunt just for fun. I live in southern Libya, and I never see any gazelles being sold in the markets. I have heard that some hunters eat certain parts of the animal, but that’s not really the point. The point is the hunt itself.

 

 

I met poachers a couple months ago while driving in the desert. I noticed a 4x4 parked at the foot of a mountain, and stopped to see what was going on. It was a horrid scene: young men had spread out gazelle corpses on a boulder, and were boasting about their prowess. They didn’t seem to realise that they had in fact just carried out a massacre. My friend and I did not dare tell them this – we didn’t want to upset them, since they were all armed.

 

Undated photo, taken in southern Libya near the border with Niger, according to the Libyan Wildlife Trust.

 

Unfortunately, this kind of scene has become almost commonplace in southern Libya. A few months after the revolution, people started pouring in from different regions of the country to hunt here. Many are militiamen, but there are also just people who own 4x4s and guns. [Since the war, firearms have proliferated in Libya]. The situation has slightly improved since the army has deployed troops in the region [in mid-December, the authorities declared the south a “closed military zone” for security reasons] But that hasn’t been enough to stop the killings.

The laws regulating gazelle hunting were written back during the days of the kingdom of Libya (1951-1969). They’ve never been updated since – not even to change the amount of the fines, which are ridiculously low. [According to these laws, hunters need to obtain a special permit to kill gazelles, and are only allowed to kill two per year.] Moreover, the state is not strong enough today to enforce these laws.

 

In certain cases, killing gazelles can help ensure a balanced fauna, so we’re not categorically against it. However, in the current state of affairs, the practice needs to be banned for at least a decade in order to let the species reproduce.

 

 

 

For the past few months, we’ve been travelling the country trying to convince people that poaching needs to be stopped urgently. We have tried to make contact with militias with the idea of educating them about this problem, but it’s very difficult to engage them in conversation. We recently met with militias in Zintan [200 kilometres south of Tripoli]. They were very welcoming, but we’re not certain that our message got through. [For security reasons, our Observer preferred not to name the militias in question]. We also met with tribes in the south, because hunting is an old tradition for them.

 

Hunting trophies. Photo posted on the Facebook page of the Libyan Wildlife Trust.

We’ve had several meetings with the Libyan assembly. We’re working with an environmental commission in the hope of introducing solid laws that will protect this species into the new constitution they’re working on. However, I get the feeling this is not one of the government’s priorities.