News that Pakistan's supreme court has lifted the ban on hunting Houbara bustards will delight many in Pakistan and the Middle East - even though the hunts are controversial. How did a shy but beautiful wild bird became a foreign policy issue? The BBC's Haroon Rashid explains the secretive world of bustard hunting.
The Houbara bustard, which resembles a turkey in shape, migrates in thousands from Central Asia to Pakistan every winter.
With them come rich influential Arabs to hunt them down. The meat is thought to be an aphrodisiac.
For more than four decades, Pakistan had been extending invitations to Arab dignitaries for the sustainable hunting of the Houbara bustard through falconry, in view of what the ministry calls "Pakistan's strong fraternal and diplomatic relations with Gulf countries".
Until last year, Arab royal family members would descend on the southern Pakistani desert regions of Balochistan and Punjab for the Houbara bustard hunt.