CPOY

CPOY 72 International Picture Story Gold: In Her Footsteps

For 2000 years, Kazakh men have been hunting with golden eagles. Since the past centuries, most of them live in the Altai mountains of western Mongolia, where the traditions and knowledge have been passed on through the generations, always from father to son.

But recently, fifteen year old girl Aisholpan Nurgaiv changed the circumstances and shocked the eagle hunting society by being first female to enter and win the world's biggest eagle hunting competition.

This project follows the life of thirteen year old Bor Dameli Shokan, one out of very few young girls that are following in Aisholpans footsteps and started hunting. Right now Bor is training her own eagle to reach her dreams, hoping that one day she will become famous and accepted as a true eagle hunter.

Caption
Slide 4 of 8
March 5, 2017
For the Kazakh people of Mongolia, eagles are a holy animal. An eagle live with the family for 7-10 years until it being released by their owner, to live the other half of it's life in the free. It's three ways to get your eagle. Either the hunter steal it from a nest before the eagle learn to fly, often in very dangerous locations of the mountains. Some families find this the only fair way and what will also prove the hunters courage when he/she get it. The other ways are to trap a wild grown up eagle, or to buy it from someone that caught it for you. Bors eagle have just been passed on to her from Bors grandfather Tabai Tabisbek, that just retired as a hunter. Shokan families second winter house, in Dayan area, is six hours from the town of Ulgii. The neighbors are few, and with long distance apart. The solar panel charging a car battery to provide electricity for light bowls and one hour of watching Indian soap operas every day.
Erik Nylander / Mid Sweden University
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