Doha, December 20 (QNA) - Registration for the 17th Qatar International Falcons and Hunting Festival (Marmi 2026) will kick off at the Qatari Society of Al Gannas (QSA) headquarters in Katara Cultural Village on Sunday. It will continue until December 23, from 4:00 pm to 8:00 pm.

The festival features numerous competitions, most notably Al Tal'a, which specializes in falcon hunting of houbara bustards; Al Da'wa, a high-speed falcon racing competition across several categories; Haddad Challenge, which pits falcons against homing pigeons; the Saluki Haddad Championship; as well as the Promising Falconer Championship, in addition to other contests that the public has come to eagerly anticipate each year.

Director of Championships at QSA and President of the Marmi Festival Metab Al Qahtani stated that registration for all the festival's championships will take place at the same time from December 21 to 23, noting that registration for the promising falconer championship will be at the festival headquarters in Sabkhat Marmi in Sealine. The date for the participation of the promising falconers will be determined after finalizing the total number of registrants across all festival competitions and conducting the draw for contestants in all championships, as the organizing committee is keen to have the largest number of young people participate and is allocating valuable prizes for them.

The festival has been considered one of the most preeminent QSA-organized events since the onset of UNESCO's accord, in November 2010, to inscribe falconry on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. This comes as part of inculcating and safeguarding the cultural and emotional values of this inherited sport, passed down from fathers and forebears, and underscores its deep-rooted significance in Arabic literature and Arab folk heritage, particularly within the Gulf and Qatari context. (QNA)