Page 196 - UAE Truncal States

The Traditional Economics
sandbanks off I lie coasl. The name Abu Dhabi means place of (or
father of) the white gazelle.11 Beduin on the move used to kill gazelles
for the pot if they chanced upon them. With the introduction of auto­
matic weapons and four-wheel drive motorcars, the gazelle popu­
lation everywhere in the Peninsula was dramatically diminished.
But fortunately it is not on the verge of extinction and is now
protected in the United Arab Emirates, in common with all other wild
life. Arabian oryx, now very rarely found anywhere in the wild, were
once abundant in Manasir country in the western Trucial Oman.12
Ibex were never recorded as far cast as the Trucial States or the Hajar
mountains; the nearest place where ibex are reported to have been
sighted is on the Jabal al Akhdar, in Oman proper.13
Only a few of the beduin groups could afford to keep saluqi dogs
for hunting. These slender dogs are fast enough to keep up with
gazelles. But when there was no wild life to hunt, the dogs had to be
fed on left-over scraps of meat, which most nomadic groups just did
not have, since their daily staple diet was milk and dales. A few
saluqi were kept by people in the LTwa and some shaikhs liked to
hunt with them, but the most popular method of hunting bustard
(hubara), foxes, rabbits and other small animals was and still is with
falcons. Two types are used in this area, the saqr (Latin falco
cherrug) and the shahln (Latin falco peregrinus).11 Both types used to
visit south-eastern Arabia on their migration routes. To catch the
wild bird and to tame, train, feed and groom it is a time-consuming
exercise, and for this reason the owners of several falcons employ
people specially to look after their birds. The Rulers* retainers,
mularzJyah, served as their falconers during the winter.
Apart from the hubara, rabbits, lizards, gazelles and foxes were
also sometimes hunted for food; wild cats, eagles, ravens and any
other birds were invariably hunted when sighted, but if they were
caught or shot they would only be eaten in extreme cases of near-
starvation, because they were considered to be unclean. The foxes of
the desert and wolves which took refuge in the mountains were a
constant threat to small domestic animals such as chickens and kid
goats, and if one was reported in the neighbourhood of a village the
entire community was mobilised to kill it. Neither hyena nor jackal
are reported to have ever been seen in this part of Eastern Arabia, but
leopards living in the Hajar mountains and on Jabal Haflt have been
seen, even recently. A particular type of wild goal (Latin capra
aegagrus) which was otherwise not known to occur on the Arabian

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