North
African houbara bustards are an endangered species. Their numbers have dwindled
in the past few decades due to poaching, over-hunting and the destruction of
their grassland habitat. The Emirates Centre for Wildlife Propagation, in the remote Moroccan town of Missour, opened
in 1995 and financed by the Abu Dhabi Government, has so far produced 60,000 of
the birds. Similar centres have been established in the UAE, Kazakhstan, China
and Turkmenistan. A small percentage of bids, kept for breeding, are allowed
human contact but the majority, released into the wild, are not. Radio and satellite
transmitters track the birds after they are released. The success of the
programme can be measured through the density of the bustard population, which
has increased ten-fold in the past decade.
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