African HOUBARA BUSTARD population bolstered by Emirates help

The Emirates Centre for Wildlife Propagation has proudly proclaimed breeding 44,000 HOUBARA BUSTARDS in captivity since 1997, including a staggering 16, 624 in 2009 alone. Of these, some 30,000 birds have now been released into the wild in the Western Sahara and Morocco, including 1,500 which have been fitted with satellite-tracking. This is fabulous news for this globally-threatened species and testament to the effort and financial resources that the ECWP is putting into conservation and the support the organisation is giving to large scale ecological studies (www.ecwp.org)