Islamabad discovered its migratory guests only after they became evidence
Urban Bystander
The flamingos made their first mistake by approaching Rawal Lake as birds.
Had they arrived as a delegation, they might have been received at the airport, garlanded, photographed near a potted palm and escorted to a conference room where their flight path could be referred to the Standing Committee on Unscheduled Beauty.
Had they arrived as a project, a consultant would have studied water depth, wing span, press visibility and migratory sentiment.
Had they arrived as an encroachment, someone would at least have measured them.
But they arrived as flamingos, rare summer visitors to a capital where unscheduled beauty is still required to prove jurisdiction. They circled Rawal Lake, found water below, sky above, hills nearby, and reported gunfire in between.
By the time Islamabad discovered them in the form it prefers, about 12 to 13 flamingos had allegedly been killed. Coots and moorhens were also reportedly among the dead. A spent cartridge was reportedly collected. A report was sent. A case was later registered. The law, citizens were relieved to learn, had not gone extinct. It had simply arrived in the tense Islamabad knows best: after.
Nosy Mynah, monitoring the matter from an ambiguous branch, said the birds had not understood the arrival procedure. “First, they should have obtained an NOC from the Ministry of Migratory Affairs,” she said. “Second, they should have checked what Rawal Lake was that week.”
“What was it?” asked Babloo.“Reservoir, picnic spot, fishery, wildlife habitat, boating venue, pollution sink and, briefly, crime scene.”“Can it not be all of them?”
“That,” said Nosy Mynah, “is how the problem is protected.”
At the Ministry, a junior officer examined the case like a man facing nature without a covering memo.“Purpose of visit?” “Resting.” “Local sponsor?” “The flyway.” “Proof of permanent address?” “They migrate.” “Next of kin?” “The season.”The officer stamped “incomplete documentation” on the air and sighed. “Everyone wants facilities. Nobody brings papers.”
This, Islamabad understands. A goat may enter after a fee slip. A car after an M-Tag. A building may remain after regularisation. But a flamingo is not a plot, voter, convoy, tender or wall. It has no uncle in the department, no press conference to call.
It is a public good with wings, the most dangerous category in the capital.
The birds were not legal strangers. The old Islamabad Wildlife Ordinance, 1979, protected flamingos by name. The newer Islamabad Nature Conservation and Wildlife Management Act, 2024, arrived with stronger teeth, a longer name, the same lake. On paper, the flamingo had been recognised. In the lake, it was vulnerable.
That is the gap through which the cartridge entered.
Mirza Chughal Khor opened the Rawal Lake file. It required both wings and one apology from the binding department.“Who owns it?” asked Nosy Mynah.
Mirza smiled. “Everyone owns it in meetings. Nobody owns it at the moment of gunfire.”One department protects wildlife; another, separately and lawfully, develops fisheries and auctions fishing rights. Another runs the dam; others meet about land, waste, water and municipal memory. Police enter when a case is made; committees, when seriousness requires chairs. Jurisdiction, the flamingos learned, is a poor substitute for shelter, and slower.
The lake had been trying to speak for years, but Islamabad prefers official languages. So it kept evidence in dialects departments could understand. Only days earlier, volunteers had lifted used syringes and plastic from the same shore; Islamabad acknowledged receipt for the length of a photograph. Then, because no one had read the earlier correspondence, came a cartridge.
A study had already found Rawal’s migratory ducks falling from 2,312 in 1983 to 585 in 2008-09. That was not prophecy. It was notice. The notice waited. The birds did not.
A bird photographer reportedly alerted officials: one citizen with a lens did what boards, patrol claims, environmental days and acronyms had not. He came for rare visitors and became the lake’s unpaid early-warning system.Officials said wildlife staff had been stretched by Margalla fire duties.
Apparently protection is seasonal, and wildlife receives coverage only when the flames are on leave.
Babloo wrote down the day’s arithmetic. “One lake, five jurisdictions, one photographer, one cartridge, about a dozen birds allegedly dead, case registered after departure.” He paused. “Protection: under process.”
The file remained. Unlike the flamingos, it was a native species. It knew the counters, stamps, pauses and wintering grounds of inquiry. It began its authorised migration: wildlife to fisheries, report to case, outrage to investigation, and finally the permanent address marked pending.
The birds had come without protocol.Islamabad gave them process.
The writer can be reached at [email protected]
