Is It Safe To Hunt In Pakistan, Iran or Nepal?

Since we are publishing a stories on hunting in Pakistan, Iran and Nepal this month we should call your attention to the safety and security issues in that region. There are several. The US Department of State issued a new Travel Warning for Pakistan (http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_5540.html) on August 8, 2011. We won't go into all the details here, but we want to be clear that this is a lengthy, detailed and decidedly scary warning. To make matters worse, just five days after it was issued, American consultant Warren Weinstein was kidnapped from Lahore, which certainly lends weight to the concerns. As of this writing, the fate of Weinstein is unknown. We should point out that there have been Travel Warnings for Pakistan for years now. There are also recent Travel Warnings for Iran (October 8, 2010,) and Nepal (January 12, 2011). Iran is of particular concern since two Americans who apparently crossed the border while hiking in the Kurdish region of Iraq (also under a travel warning as of April 12, 2011), were convicted on August 21 of illegally entering Iran and spying for the US. They were both sentenced to eight years in prison, three years for illegal entry, five years for espionage. It is being widely reported that the two are being used as pawns in a power struggle within the Iranian government. The difference between these hikers and arriving hunters? Hunters arriving in Iran have complete transparency. They clear Iranian Customs, have documents and paperwork showing exactly what they are there for and Iranian escorts the entire time they are in the country. In the interest of fairness, we should also report that State Department Travel Warnings have recently been issued for a number of other popular hunting destinations, including Central African Republic and Mexico. We would never advise subscribers to ignore a Travel Warning, as they are not issued in a vacuum. You should read them and add the possible dangers into your personal calculations of whether or not to visit a particular destination. We'd also urge you to read all the hunt reports and articles on a particular destination you are considering. These........(continued)