Bahrain royalty want to set up ‘seven-star’ falconry in Yorkshire

BAHRAIN’S royal family is seeking to open a falcon breeding centre in Yorkshire and plans to export the world’s fastest-flying birds to the Middle East.

Members of the billionaire Khalifa family are bankrolling plans for what the planning application calls a “sevenstar breeding project” in Easingwold, near York. They have recruited Dr Mark Robb, a birds of prey expert, to help rear young peregrines at a livestock farm in Dawney Lane that they intend to convvert into a state-of-the-art facility.

The proposal is due to be considered by Hambleton District Council’s planning committee today after council officers recommended that it be approved.

As they will be used for hunting in the Gulf state they must be reared by a pair of falcons, rather than humans, so that they behave like wild animals.

Peregrines, which can be found in small numbers across Britain, swoop on pigeons and other prey from great heights at 200mph.

Councillors will be told that since neighbouring Dubai had become “a symbol of extreme wealth and power”, unscrupulous dealers thrived on smuggling birds.

Bahrain has joined the CITES – the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, of which the UK is also a member – to control the trade of endangered animals, so the country is more dependent on captive-breed falcons.

The planning application from Mr Robb explained: “About two months ago we were approached by the Royal family of Bahrain to set up a breeding project on their behalf and to manage it for them here in the UK.

“To breed falcons in captivity is extraordinarily complicated and time consuming. Most other animals breed as a natural part of their life cycle. However, falcons need certain conditions to be able to … breed inside an aviary.”

Mr Robb said his existing breeding site in Great Broughton, a village in north Yorkshire, was the largest in the UK but needed to expand.

Bahrain’s rulers had asked him to search for suitable properties in other parts of Britain to run the new programme but he had found Yorkshire’s climate “much more favourable”. No objections have been recorded in the consultation process.

Council planning officers, who are recommending the application is approved, said the proposal would “help the expansion of an established business and conservation model which will enable the applicants to meet high welfare levels for the conservation, breeding, rearing and export of endangered birds”.