Published on : Tuesday, March 5, 2019
Co-organized by the Mongolian Ministry of Environment and Tourism, the Mongolian Eagle Hunter’s Association and others the event, Spring Golden Eagle Festival wants to promote the tradition of hunting with eagles.
Tsegmid Tsengel, state secretary at the Mongolian Ministry of Environment and Tourism, said at the opening ceremony of the festival that it was a part of their efforts to attract more domestic and foreign tourists.
He was happy that the number of domestic and foreign tourists visiting the festival keeps on increasing.
The 12the edition of the two-day festival will see around 20 eagle hunters between the age of 18-77 from Bayan-Ulgii Province and catch fake animals like the as foxes and hares, with specially trained golden eagles. This will show the skills of both the birds and their trainers.
Earlier it had used live animals to test the eagles’ skills but as per the organizers fake animals were used instead in recent years.
At the top of the mountain the eagle hunters will compete and call their eagles, the quickest to recognize its owner and sit on its owner’s forearm is tagged as the winner.