Houbara Bustards

Inside the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, there are people taking care of small chicks. In North Africa houbara bustards are becoming extinct because of poaching, over hunting and destruction of their natural habitat. The Emirates Center for wild life propagation started a plan since 1995 till now and produced 60,000 of the houbara bustards. The center is in the town of Missour in Morocco. Many centers were established in a variety of countries such as China, the UAE, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. There are some plans for the future in Morocco to expand the lease to 15,000 birds per season; every hatched bird has a purpose, some for breeding and some to be released into the wild. The center must process 600 semen samples for breeding. They do up to 400 inseminations a day. Chicks that are for release are kept away from humans until they are nine months old. Only 65% of the released birds survive. They track their environment by satellite devices. The project is a success and the numbers are going up.


175 words