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European Falcons Featured at Saudi Int’l Falcon Breeders Auction

The Saudi Falcons Club (SFC) is hosting the International Falcon Breeders Auction (IFBA) with over 14 worldwide countries participating from August 5th to September 5th, 2021. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
The Saudi Falcons Club (SFC) is hosting the International Falcon Breeders Auction (IFBA) with over 14 worldwide countries participating from August 5th to September 5th, 2021. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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European Falcons Featured at Saudi Int’l Falcon Breeders Auction

The Saudi Falcons Club (SFC) is hosting the International Falcon Breeders Auction (IFBA) with over 14 worldwide countries participating from August 5th to September 5th, 2021. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
The Saudi Falcons Club (SFC) is hosting the International Falcon Breeders Auction (IFBA) with over 14 worldwide countries participating from August 5th to September 5th, 2021. (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh has kickstarted its first-ever edition of the International Falcon Breeders Auction (IFBA) with an exciting display of the French gyrfalcon. Bidders, breeders, and those with a genuine passion for falconry showed tremendous competition at the event.

Many had crossed thousands of miles to attend the IFBA affair featuring the finest breeds of European falcons and which took place in Malham, north of Riyadh.

The Saudi Falcons Club (SFC) is hosting the IFBA with over 14 worldwide countries participating from August 5th to September 5th, 2021.

Bidding on the gyrfalcon from the French SB Falcons farm opened at SAR15,000 and closed at a whopping SAR 24,000. Meanwhile, bidding on a German falcon from another competing farm opened at SAR 10,000 and closed at SAR14,000.

The IFBA featured seven of the finest European falcons presented from farms in Germany, France, Britain, and Spain on its fourth day.

The IFBA aims to provide the rarest falcon breeds in the Kingdom and the region, as well as to attract the most authentic international experiences in the field of falconry to the Kingdom, maintaining the Kingdom as an international destination for these farms, thereby expanding investment opportunities and creating direct and indirect business opportunities.

It is noteworthy to mention that the IFBA has been developed to become a full-service event at the SFC in Malham, where an area is designated for companies providing veterinary products, tools, and supplies for the breeding and training of falcons.

Last October, the Saudi Falcons Club had organized an auction for locally captured falcons, which was a resounding success, with sales of 102 falcons caught in different regions within Saudi Arabia exceeding SAR 10 million.

The auction’s fierce competition between buyers and presence of quality falcons deemed the first-ever locally captured falcon auction a success.

A global milestone was set by selling the world’s most valuable “Shaheen” falcon at the auction, which was entrusted to its owner for SAR 650,000.

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Beloved Zurich Zoo Gorilla Euthanized after Years of Declining Health

FILE - N'Gola, the silverback male of the gorilla group at Zurich Zoo celebrates his 40th birthday on Wednesday, June 21, 2017, in Zurich. (Siggi Bucher/Keystone via AP, file)
FILE - N'Gola, the silverback male of the gorilla group at Zurich Zoo celebrates his 40th birthday on Wednesday, June 21, 2017, in Zurich. (Siggi Bucher/Keystone via AP, file)
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Beloved Zurich Zoo Gorilla Euthanized after Years of Declining Health

FILE - N'Gola, the silverback male of the gorilla group at Zurich Zoo celebrates his 40th birthday on Wednesday, June 21, 2017, in Zurich. (Siggi Bucher/Keystone via AP, file)
FILE - N'Gola, the silverback male of the gorilla group at Zurich Zoo celebrates his 40th birthday on Wednesday, June 21, 2017, in Zurich. (Siggi Bucher/Keystone via AP, file)

The Zurich Zoo’s beloved gorilla of more than 40 years has been put down after a long struggle with declining health, a zoo official in the Swiss city said this week.
N’Gola was 47 and one of the oldest male gorillas in European zoos, said Zurich Zoo director Severin Dressen.
He was a Western lowland gorilla — a subspecies of the great apes found in Africa and listed as critically endangered — and because of his mature age he was a silverback, after the gray hair on his back, The Associated Press reported.
N'Gola had suffered a host of health ailments, including arthritis, a heart condition and a tapeworm infection. He had been on painkillers for several years, eating less, and losing weight and muscle mass.
“It’s a hard decision to euthanize a silverback,” Dressen said.
"We’ve seen a crash in the wild over the span of three generations of 80% of the population," Dressen said about the decline of gorillas in the wild. Zoos can be helpful for research and public education about species protection, he added.
N'Gola was born in captivity and fathered 34 children. He was known for his sensitive side, taking “care of his harem, his group of females,” Dressen said.
In 2012, the female Nache in his harem suffered a burst appendix during advanced pregnancy, and both she and the unborn baby gorilla died, according to the Swiss newspaper Neue Zuricher Zeitung.
N’Gola spent weeks whimpering through the zoo enclosure looking for her, the report said.
Dressen also recalled a time when N'Gola looked after a baby gorilla in the group. "The mother wasn’t there, and he kind of — which is not a typical silverback behavior — took care of that baby.”
As for humans, N'Gola mostly ignored "other bipedal species on the other side of the glass” of his enclosure, Dressen said.