Mongolian Eagle Festival

An Eagle festival, a popular event among Kazakhns, was held in the Dundad zunn tourist camp at Terelj on Febuary 2nd where Ben Paige and I went. It turns out it was the first time the festival had been held so close to the city. Usually 600 Kazak hunters with eagles take part but only 22 of them traveled to Ulaanbaatar. The small number of hunters where from soums in the Altai Mountain region. It takes about four days of travelling to cover the 1700km. The oldest hunter was around 80 years of age who was a fourth generation hunter and the youngest was 18 years of age who started hunting at the age of 14. The unique hunting festival, common to Kazakh areas in Central Asia, dates back 6000 years. Mostly golden eagles are trained for hunting where their sharp eyesight and strong claws are of great use. The eagles are taken from the nest when they are small if they are to be trained. The female golden eagles are the biggest and stronger then the male eagles.

Once the opening ceremony was over it was an amazing sight to see the hunters on their horses with their eagles on their arms come over the hill. Through out the event the hunters would take the eagles to a handler and ride down the hill with a rabbit decoy trailing behind the horse that was tied with a piece of rope. Once the eagle was let go, it flew to the moving target and the hunter on horseback would collect the pray. To see this hunting in action was very interesting. The hunters worn red in their hats as this was a colour that helped the eagles see the hunters to beable to return to them once the pray had been caught. The funny thing was when reading the ticket for this event it stated that the colours red, yellow and any fox fur shouldnt be worn as it distracts the eagles. I couldnt believe how many Mongolians worn clothing with these colours and fur. I felt it was very disrespectful towards the hunters and proved once again how many Mongolians have no respect for other people. It was very cold so we didnt stay very long as Paige was coming down with a cold and wasnt herself.