VIDEOS: Dubai Safari Park receives first group of animals

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VIDEOS: Dubai Safari Park receives first group of animals

Abu Dhabi - The Dh1 billion project, located at Al Warqa district, will cover a total area of 119 hectares and will be home to almost 10,500 animals from around the world.

By Wam

Published: Tue 15 Mar 2016, 11:00 PM

Last updated: Wed 16 Mar 2016, 2:41 PM

The Dubai Safari Park of Dubai Municipality has started to receive some of the animals that will be the foundation stock for the collection.
The Dh1 billion project, located at Al Warqa district, will cover a total area of 119 hectares.
Since late 2014 the Staff at the Safari Office have been working on a collection plan that will take the Safari to 2020 and beyond.
The main goal was to set the safari up with the best animals with the best genetics, once these animals were found the team then went about acquiring the animals.
The new zoo will be home to almost 10,500 animals from around the world, and out of those, there will be more than 350 species of rare and endangered animals.
The team has spent many hours going over the different stud books used by zoos around the world and then selecting the best from what is offered. We then went and personally viewed the animals that we were going to acquire, just to be sure they were right for Dubai Safari.
We turned down many animals in our quest to give Dubai the best possible collection. These animals once they all arrive will be cared for by professionals that Dubai Municipality has employed, coming from all corners of the world. Finding these staff has been almost as difficult as finding the animals.

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Can you guess what are in the boxes pic.twitter.com/1dcECL25sg
- ????? ??? (@DMunicipality) March 15, 2016

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Once they are all here in Dubai then the next step is to carefully manage the collection always being sure that only the best specimens in the collection breed.
This whole project once completed will indeed put Dubai on the map for those who will expect only the best from a zoo or safari park. The knowledge and ethical care for the animals will soon have Dubai Safari recognized as a world leader.

HE Eng. Hussain Lootah supervised the arrival of #DubaiSafari's animals that will soon roam around the park pic.twitter.com/UGnQtVv7da
- ????? ??? (@DMunicipality) March 15, 2016

The boxes are here & the animals are ready to play in #DubaiSafari, are you ready? pic.twitter.com/hogmwepTKV
- ????? ??? (@DMunicipality) March 15, 2016

Although it is still a little way off from opening the Safari team decided that they should start moving animals here before it gets too hot, this will give the animals time to acclimatize to the Dubai weather, although the exhibits have cooling systems in place it is important not to be moving animals in the heat.

Dubai Safari welcomes the first batch of animals in preparation for its opening in the beginning of next year pic.twitter.com/WfUkfDVpNx
- ????? ??? (@DMunicipality) March 15, 2016

The first animals arrived on March 14th coming from Seoul Grand Park in Korea. " The Safari team and T&J co were over there in early February and picked these animals from the many they had on offer. We have a Sister zoo relationship with this Park and this will be the first of many contacts we make with them."