The Age - Melbourne 26/4/2000
Israel bans hunting as guest workers' tastes run wild
By ALAN PHILPS
JERUSALEM
Wednesday 26 April 2000
Israel has ordered a three-year ban on hunting after Thai guest workers were blamed for eating everything from wolves to gazelles and birds.
At first, conservationists thought the cause of an alarming decline in wildlife might be drought, pollution or the destruction of habitat through development. But they now accept that all creatures great and small are appearing on the plates of Thai farm laborers who trap and eat anything that moves.
Israel employs about 20,000 Thai laborers to tend avocados and pack oranges for export.
Rangers investigating the decline have found hundreds of simple traps near areas where the Thais work. None of the local people use such traps, preferring to hunt with guns, searchlights and Jeeps.
The southern Golan had 6000 gazelles seven years ago. Now there are only 500. In the same area, conservationists put radio collars on 18 wolves. Four wolves were found trapped in Thai-style lassoes. "Every Thai worker gets half a sack of rice per month. If they want to eat any meat, they have to catch it. It is amazing what they eat - dogs, cats, jackals, small birds, chicks and eggs," said Yair Sharon, a national parks wildlife inspector.
He added: "They are far more efficient at catching wolves than we are, despite all our high technology. They use techniques from biblical times - catapults, bits of string and things they find lying around the farm."
The National Parks Authority has begun to mobilise children to roam the countryside and remove the traps set by the hunters.
Most are simple lassoes, hung on a raised fence around an orchard, which strangle the wild animals. Some traps are more sinister - pits in the ground with spears to impale a gazelle. There are even foot snares attached to bent trees, which swing the animal into the air like the traps laid for US troops in Vietnam.
Sometimes a ranger will come across a pile of quills and a skull - the remains of a porcupine dinner.
The arrival of the Thai workers is an unintended consequence of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Israeli farms used to employ Palestinian labor until the mid-'90s, when unrest led the government to close off the Occupied Territories so the workers could not get to the fields. The solution was to import labor.
Mr Sharon said: "If you want nature conservation, you cannot have Thai workers. It is part of their culture to hunt, and they may be hungry, too."