Egypt to build wildlife park modelled on pioneering Jordanian predator reserve

Environment Minister Yasmine Fouad toured Al Mawa for Nature and Wildlife in northern Jordan

The new wildlife park will be within Egypt's Wadi Rayan Nature Reserve

Egypt’s Environment Ministry will build a new wildlife park inside one of the country's largest nature reserves.

It will be modelled on Jordan’s Al Mawa for Nature and Wildlife, a shelter for at-risk predators, it said.

Environment Minister Yasmine Fouad toured the Jordanian park near the northern city of Jerash on Monday.

The Egyptian park, which will be established in the Wadi Rayan Nature Reserve in the rural province of Fayoum, 100km south of Cairo, is a bid by the government to boost eco-tourism, the ministry said.

During her tour of Al Mawa, Ms Fouad praised its facilities, management, and the high degree to which the local community has been incorporated into the conservation efforts.

“Al Mawa is a pioneering example of the kind of conservation we want to create at Wadi Rayan,” Fouad said.

The Jordanian park predominantly shelters predators that have been rescued from conflict zones or have had their habitats destroyed and can’t return to them. They are kept in large, fenced enclosures.

It currently houses 23 lions, seven bears, two tigers and two hyenas. The reserve is open to visitors, who are taken on ticketed tours by on-site specialists.

“We are very interested to recreate this experience in Egypt,” Ms Fouad said. “It is a green project that aims to protect biodiversity by rehoming animals that would otherwise be extinct.”

Jordanian specialists would be instrumental in the establishment of the Egyptian park, the minister said. She thanked Jordan's King Abdullah for his invitation and for his support of the exchange of expertise on wildlife conservation.

On their visit, Ms Fouad and her team learnt how Al Mawa feeds, observes and provides medical care for its animals.

Special attention was paid to how the camp provides services to its visitors and how it conducts its guided tours “without disturbing the animals”, she said.

Wadi Rayan is Egypt’s largest nature reserve at 1,759 square kilometres. A popular site among ecotourists visiting Egypt, it is home to wild animal species including white and Egyptian gazelles, sand and fennec foxes.

It is also popular with birdwatching enthusiasts because of the many rare species of resident and migrant birds that can be seen there.

The reserve comprises waterfalls, salt lakes and a famed paleontological site known as the Valley of the Whales where hundreds of fossils from an early form of whale that walked on land are on display for visitors.