By Pratibha Tuladhar, dpa
Pokhara, Nepal (dpa) - It is a busy time in the hills of Sarangkot, on the outskirts of Pokhara in central Nepal, as paragliders gather with their colourful wings, spotting the hills in blue, orange, red and all the other colours of the rainbow.
Kevin, a 6-year-old Egyptian vulture, is getting ready to fly with the paragliders. Perched on the fist of his keeper, he ruffles his feathers, preparing to join the men and women taking off, sometimes smoothly, sometimes clumsily from the hilltop. It's a short sprint before they jump off the cliff, Kevin joining them.
With a yellow hooked beak and pink head covered by spiky white feathers, Kevin is about 70 centimetres tall and is one of the birds who navigate for paragliders in Pokhara. He and his fellow Egyptian vulture Bob, 4, seek out thermals that keep the paragliders airborne.
"We rescued Kevin from the forest, when he was a chick, as he had fallen off the nest and injured himself," explains Scott Mason, the 40-year-old British bird conservationist, who invented the sport of parahawking.
"We raised him and trained him."
"The birds have a natural instinct for finding thermals and they have better eyesight, so it's easier for paragliders to just follow the bird," says Damodar Parajuli, a Nepali parahawker.
The gliders make their landing, guided by the bird.
Mason, originally a graphic designer and a bird trainer, arrived in Nepal a decade ago to do a paragliding flight. As a bird trainer, he was overwhelmed with the different species of birds found in Nepal.
But he was also struck by how the number of vultures in Nepal, Pakistan and India was fast declining due to the use of diclofenac, a drug used on livestock, which is fatal for the birds of prey when they feed on animal carcasses.
"On leaving, I was presented with an option to stay and train two black kites to fly with paragliders by a friend who owned a paragliding company."
Mason thought it was a good opportunity to use the birds of prey as ambassadors to promote the issue of conservation and stayed in the South Asian country. In 2001, he conducted the first parahawking flight, using one of the black kites.
"What started as an experiment turned into a labour of love," he says.
The extreme adventure comes with an underlying objective of bird conservation. The money raised from the parahawking goes to running a rescue facility for birds, Himalayan Raptor Rescue, which takes care of injured birds before returning them to the wild.
"Part of the money goes to vulture restaurants," Mason says.
Conservationists decided to start feeding centres for the birds - known as vulture restaurants - to protect them from carrion contaminated with diclofenac residue.
The government banned diclofenac in 2006 for veterinary use. But it is still available on the market for human use, and farmers get it and administer it to animals.
As the vultures soar alongside, the paragliders hold out lumps of meat between their index finger and thumbs for the birds to take.
"It's a different thing to have a bird fly and take food off your hand," says Robert Dan from Alaska in the United States.
When the birds aren't flying, the trainers exercise them.
"We don't fly them during the moulting period because we don't want to compromise on the quality of their feathers," says Taylor Guastella, a bird trainer from the US. They also avoid flying them when the birds are breeding.
It was only after a film on parahawking made by Mason and a friend earned international recognition that they decided to start in-tandem commercial flights.
What started at the cost of 1,000 Nepali rupees (12.9 dollars) in 2006, now costs 14,000. The two birds, Bob and Kevin, each do a daily flight from September to March. They live in the garden of a resort hotel run by Mason, with other black kites, Sapana - the first paragliding bird, now 11 years old - Goggles, Brad, and two recently rescued chicks.
"You can't pat and pet a bird like you do with dogs and cats," says Mason. "But it's a spiritual feeling to be in the air, see their expressions, observe their behaviour and pass the passion on to the passengers."
dpa pt ses cds
