>falconry is the rich-sheik status symbol. no hobby, a hierarchy
>and at the absolute top of every tier list sits one bird: the Kazakh saker
>versatile, incredibly intelligent, a genuine apex hunter
>26,000 USD per bird, and that's the floor
>there is no saker in Saudi Arabia
>so they bribe Kazakh shepherds to trap them off the nest
>then bribe the customs and the airport officials to walk the crates out
>crate, blanket, rubber band on the beak, VIP gate, Riyadh
>repeat for 30 years
>population in Kazakhstan down 80%
>uplisted to Endangered. a bird that has been an apex predator since the ice age, now a line item
>some guy in Jeddah has 60 of them on air-conditioned perches eating quail like tiny pharaohs
>and plenty of them die in transit, in the socks and the crates, before they ever see the Gulf
>and the reason for all of it? not meat. not need. a sport
>they're flown at houbara bustards for fun, and the houbara is collapsing too, so the prey is going down with the predator
>hunting used to be a chore, a job, a food source. it had a reason
>then some Victorian decided it was a "sport" and now an animal's entire life is scheduled around a man's weekend
>1859, Thomas Austin, one Englishman, imports 24 rabbits into Australia so he can shoot them
>no predators, no brakes, worst invasive mammal on the continent
>160 years of poisoning, fencing and releasing viruses to fix one man's fun
>hunting for food is… fine. hunting for fun breaks continents
>and the religion forbids the bribe, by name, specifically
>hadith curses both the bribe-giver and the bribe-taker
>Umar's whole legend is a man asking officials where they got the money
>1,400 years of "no rishwah" written in permanent marker
>and the whole trade still runs on an envelope
>because a price signal gets enforced every single day, and a moral code gets one sermon a year
>no cleric at Almaty airport. no inspectorate. nothing
>and the biggest falcon buyer on earth is the exact guy who'd have to enforce it
>Islam didn't lose. Islam wasn't even in the ring. capitalism just needed a sin with no department behind it
>shepherd gets a few hundred bucks, that same bird hits an auction block for the price of a Land Cruiser a week later
>wagie shepherd, getting farmed
>the one honest customs officer doing his actual job is the last of his kind as tomorrow he is found dead
TL;DR - no tanks, no sanctions, no oil embargo. Just crates, socks, bakshish, a species at 80% gone, and a made-up word called "sport."
