MEERUT, India — Mehmood Ali is a carpenter by day and shaman by night. He says he heals people battling anxiety, sleeplessness, curses and misfortune.
The soft-spoken, 50-year-old Ali uses body parts of owls in his elaborate sorcery rituals for healing. Trade in owls was made illegal in India in 1972, but trafficking for such rituals is carried on clandestinely across the country.
An 18-year study of the illegal owl trade in India, titled “Imperilled Custodians of the Night,” published last month by the World Wildlife Fund, says owls and their body parts are “primarily used for black magic.”
“There is no scientific owl census in India, but ornithologists have reported in the past two decades that the chances of spotting an owl are becoming difficult,” said Samir Sinha, head of India’s branch of Traffic, the WWF’s trade watchdog. Sinha said habitat loss is another factor working against owls: “The old tree forests are shrinking.”
