**1. Introduction**

The hunting of gamebirds for both recreational and food items dates back to ancient times. In some cases, this practice ended up depleting the wild stocks to a considerable extent [1], especially over the last century [2]. To counterbalance this phenomenon, captive breeding for restocking purposes has spread throughout the world. Farming practices to produce, rear, and release game birds improved thanks to the provision of human interventions and care. In this context, the viability of captive-raised birds in the wild is an essential prerequisite.

When released, captive birds face a sudden change in their habitat [3]. They are first provided intense human interventional care, and then, once released, exposed to no or minimal human interventions. Nevertheless, intensively reared birds are of compromised quality in terms of wild behavior and instincts, flight distances and flight speeds, which progressively increase their mortality after release [4–7]. However, less stressed and better-raised birds with stimulated wild instincts for environmental pressures can overcome the associated challenges.

The intensively farmed birds are released for restocking or reintroduction [8–10], but those released for hunting purposes, numbering several million per year, largely exceed the others [9, 11]. Galliformes (especially partridges) account for about 70% of all hunted species [12]. These gallinaceous gamebirds include socioeconomically relevant species such as the Chukar partridge (*Alectoris chukar*), the Red-legged partridge (*A. rufa*), and the Rock partridge (*A. graeca*). These species are appreciated not only for their meat but also for the beauty of their ornamentation.

The Chukar partridge is a medium-sized, diurnal, gregarious, aggressive, and one of the most commonly introduced gamebirds worldwide [13]. It is distributed from southeastern Europe eastwards across the Middle East and Central Asia to Manchuria in the north and Nepal in the south. In Pakistan, it is found from 400 m above sea level (asl) in the Salt Range of Pakistan to 4000 m asl in the Western Himalayas. It is regarded as the national bird of Pakistan, where is vernacularly known as "Chakoor" or Chakor", as well as "Chand Chakor" or "Chan Chakor", due to the appearance of the black line as a crescent on the lateral sides of the face. Now in Pakistan, chukar is widely reared for recreational hunting and reintroduction purposes. However, it is still poorly studied in captivity [14]. It can be reared efficiently for meat production and the food, once curated, is distributed to consumers [15].

The species is indeed exposed to several threats like habitat degradation, and reduction due to human encroachment, hunting, poaching of eggs, chicks, and adults that are used for fighting [16]. The correlation between the success of breeding and weather patterns largely determines its population size [17]. Although the local chukar population in Pakistan seems unaffected by anthropogenic pressures, actually its consistency is dwindling [14]. This chapter is of prime importance due to the focus on the welfare of chukar partridge during intensive farming for reintroduction, meat, and game purposes.
