The scorpion hunters of Pakistan
Hundreds of people are involved in lucrative but unregulated scorpion trade amid fears it will affect the ecosystem.
Thatta, Pakistan - Sitting in a dimly lit real estate office in a remote area of Pakistan's Sindh province, Naveed Gauri Khan waited for the scorpion broker he had been in correspondence with all week.
Khan, who claimed to be a frontman for a Swedish pharmaceutical firm, is among hundreds of others in the South Asian country involved in the lucrative scorpion trade.
The scorpions are in great demand apparently for medical research, and according to Khan a black scorpion weighing 60 grams can fetch at least $50,000.
Khan's phone rang constantly, but he ignored all the calls. Later, he told Al Jazeera that the phone calls were from middlemen offering him bribes to buy the invertebrate.
When the broker finally arrived, three hours late, he was empty-handed. Brokers and buyers involved in Sindh's scorpion trade complain that this is often the case.
"Although the trade is legal, hunters and brokers are afraid of security agencies," Khan told Al Jazeera. "They don't show the scorpion until they trust the buyer."
Local newspapers have recently carried stories describing the
trade as illegal, discouraging open trading.
Nawab Muhammad Yusuf Talpur, a member of the National Assembly elected from Sindh, told Al Jazeera that although there is no legislation against the trade, regulations consider trading wildlife caught and moved from its natural habitat to be unacceptable.
The wildlife department, however, told Al Jazeera that there was no official law prohibiting Sindh's scorpion trade.
"Since there's no law prohibiting the trade and deals are apparently very profitable, why wouldn't more people get involved in this?" Javed Mehar, the head of the Sindh Wildlife Fund, told Al Jazeera.
Trust issues
Shahid and Sohail, two friends who grew up together in a housing colony in Sindh province's Thatta district, have never been scared of the scorpion's venomous sting.
"As teenagers, we caught and killed scorpions as a game," Sohail told Al Jazeera. "Last year we found out that if we caught a live one, we could be instant millionaires."
Source: Al Jazeera