Hesham: A born hunter

LAHORE-Hunting is his passion and obsession. The slightest instigation for the Big Game makes him completely restless and draws him towards the snow-capped highest mountain range in the world: The Himalayas.
Hesham was born into a highly respected agriculture family of Punjab in 1975, He remembers that he would go for target practice with his grandfather Khan Tariq Ismail Khan,(Retd. Home Secretary).
This affair with the guns at a very early age got over him completely and as he grew older, he started to go out for hunting with his father Usama Tariq Khan, cousins, uncles and friends.
To him, “Hunting is not killing animals mindlessly, but, it is a highly sophisticated, scientific and laborious, as well as, dangerous sport.”
Those who make faces over the stuffed animals and consider hunting the animals as a cruel activity must remember that humans have been killing animals since the dawn of the human civilization. The killing of animals is still going on as we ‘kill’ Chicken, Goose, Goats, Lambs, and Cows etc.
Moreover, Hesham commented, “I don’t go for the rare species of animals nor I unbalance the delicate order of the nature, rather I go for Himalayan Ibex or those species, which is in abundance in our country but on very high altitudes and hazardous environments. However, I pay a lot of money in the form of licenses which not only befits the government but also helps the underdeveloped communities in our northern areas like Gilgit-Baltistan, etc.”
He revealed that the hefty sum of money which is being paid for licenses by him and other hunters 80% of it goes to the local communities, while 20% goes to the Wildlife Fund for the protection and upkeep of the animals.
Hesham can go on for hours and hours when describing how it was and how it feels while hunting way up there in the freezing zone under the shadows of the snow-capped mountain range of Himalaya, where your blood vessels start freezing due to the intense cold.
It’s a different world out there, the city folks, comfortably stuck into their luxurious couches & sofas near a fire place in winter Most of the Time it’s a ‘Cliff-Hanger’ kind of experience as the viewers must have experienced in the famous movie.
However, the ground reality is entirely different from watching a movie in a secure environment and scaling the high altitude mountain peaks in the most rugged, hostile and up there, at 3454.5 meters in a Freezing zone with temperature as low as -20.
He calls it “A Labour of Love”, and all those hardships faced by him were worth it. While describing the mesmerizing details of the final day when he finally got his reward by the grace of Allah on 1st January 2016 on the top of the mountain where he shot down the biggest Himalayan Ibex. A beaming Hesham Usama Khan got so excited that he stood up from his seat the twilling of days, the 48 hours long stalking and lookout in the vast wilderness for a glimpse of that much sought after Himalayan Ibex, many sleepless nights in small tents at the foot of the Batura Glacier and the unforgettable final night at an altitude of over 3000 meters, spent in a shoebox like shepherd hut, it all paid off on the morning of the New Year’s First morning and, the World Record Himalayan Ibex-Ranked No.1 was down on the cold stone floor of those snowcapped Rocky Mountains in just three seconds, while his fellow animals running for a cover right past him.
The world class trophy was harvested in Passu, Hunza (Younz valley) near Batura Glacier at 3454.5meters altitude out fitted by Muhammad Shifa (Silk Route Expeditions).
This Trophy was appreciated on local, as well as International Forums, to name a few prominent worldwide awards are Safari Club International Gold Award, Rowland Ward’s Record of Big Games, Carlo Caldesi Award (Italian Chapter for all animal species worldwide) and Shikar Safari (for all animal species in Asia).

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