Two Saudi poachers who posted an amateur video of themselves illegally hunting gazelles are now being hunted down themselves - by the authorities. Not only did the pair use rifles which are banned for hunters - but the animals they killed were of an endangered species, and on a nature reserve.

The poachers happily show off their catch while the car radio plays a popular Saudi song in the background. On the men's shoulders hang sniper rifles - banned for hunting purposes in Saudi Arabia. The clip is entitled "Defying the nature reserve".

The general secretary of the National Commission for Wildlife Conservation and Development, prince Bandar bin Mohammed al-Saud, has called on witnesses to come forward in helping to arrest the pair. He admitted however that his organisation had known about the video for two months, but did not want to publicise the issue. It was only when the Saudi Web became enflamed with the subject that an appeal for witnesses was issued.

According to local media, the poachers speak in a dialect from a region near Riyadh. They believe that the video was probably filmed in the Uruq Bani Ma'arid nature reserve, situated nearby. The reserve was established in 1994 and covers almost 12,000 km2 in an area called Rub al-Khali (literally, the "empty quarter"), one of the world's largest sand deserts.

On Monday, the Al-Watan newspaper reported that one of the pair was arrested on Friday 16 April.