9 lions, 4 bears move in at Dubai Safari Park

Dubai: On March 14, Dubai Safari Park received 32 animals from Seoul Grand Park, South Korea.

Wonder what kind of animals they were?

Dubai Municipality has confirmed that the first batch of animals living at the new zoo includes nine lions, four bears, nine monkeys and 10 bats. 

These animals are the first out of the 10,500 animals expected to inhabit the Dh1 billion safari park.

“In the last 14 months, we’ve travelled around the world, looking for animals from different zoos to find the best genetics. So Dubai Safari will have the best genetics possible of every type of animals available in zoos today,” said Timothy Husband, technical director of Dubai Safari Park.

Although the doors of the Safari Park are expected to open to the public by the end of 2016, officials at the municipality have assured that it is not too early to start acclimatising the animals to their new habitat.

“While 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,” said Hussain Nasser Lootah, director general of Dubai Municipality.

“This will give the animals time to acclimatise to the Dubai weather, [even though] the exhibits have cooling systems in place, it is important not to be moving animals in the heat,” he said.

Covering a total area of 119 hectares, the zoo is expected to open its doors to the public by the end of this year in Al Warqa’a 5.

But it will not be limited to recreational activities.

Eisa Al Maidour, deputy director general of Dubai Municipality, said that the park will include a research centre, in order to carry out a number of studies and research projects on biological diversity.

“In the future, Dubai Safari Park will be considered as one of the global sanctuaries, which will include a research centre that will study the conservation of animals, as well as biological diversity,” he said.