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Al Ain Wildlife Park and Resort

Gene diversity, as Farshid Mehrdadfar, (Al Ain Wildlife Park and Resort) AWPR’s animal collection manager, puts it, is a dream the resort hopes to fulfill in the near future.

Following the success of the resort’s ‘Sand Cat Project’ (in collaboration with US-based University of Illinois and the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden) where the use of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) helped conceive a kitten from a surrogate mother, has given hope to park officials to introduce species to quality DNA strains for better means of survival.

“It (in-vitro fertilization and embryo transfer) furthers the gene diversity of species within captive population by infusing founder samples (semen from US, Europe, etc.). It could help with the overall approach of collection management and the long term sustainability of mean kinship and survivability of the species in wildlife parks and zoological facilities by lessening the number of animals captured from the wild and focusing on sample collection from the wild animals,” said Mehrdadfar.

He added that it would connect wildlife parks and zoos in a global network to share ideas and samples.

“If we can exchange animals within zoological facilities we can preserve many endangered species,” he said, adding that the resort works in close collaboration with international conservation groups around the world. Organisations include the Northern Rangelands Trust and the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in Kenya, the Sambora Wildlife Reserve in South Africa, The San Diego Zoological Society in the US.

The AWPR is home to more than 4,000 animals comprising over 160 species. The animals are acquired at different parts of the year giving enough time to adjust to their new abode.