ABU DHABI // The first captive-bred houbara chick of the season hatched this week.
The International Fund for Houbara Conservation (IFHC) said the Asian Houbara chick arrived on March 4.
Several thousand are expected to hatch this year at the fund’s Sheikh Khalifa Houbara Breeding Centre.
The Asian Houbara is facing extinction and is bred in captivity to be released to the wild or for regulated hunting.
“While this is the first of many thousands of chicks we will be breeding this year, it is still a special moment to savour,” said Mohammed Saleh Al Baidani, the director general of IFHC.
“It is one of the major milestones of the fund’s state-of-the-art breeding programme and gives us heart for our continuing endeavours to provide a sustainable future for the houbara.”
Due to Bedouin falconers hunting the houbara as a source of food in the UAE and other countries in the region, the number of bustards has been in decline.
Last year, the IFHC released nearly 6,000 birds ino the wild, more than 4,000 of them in the UAE, and bred more than 40,000.
The IFHC also aims to oversee international conservation projects that promote protection of the houbara’s habitats.
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