By Fran Gillespie
THE Al Wabra Wildlife Preservation (AWWP) has announced the launch of the Art and Wildlife Conservation Project in Qatar. The project reflects a collaboration between AWWP and ‘The Art of BAS’, a collection of paintings by world renowned British wildlife and nature artist BAS.
With an innate ability to distill the beauty and essence of animals in the wild on canvas, The Art of BAS has gained recognition from art critics and collectors alike. The Artists for Conservation Foundation Worldwide recently honoured BAS for “artistic excellence and extraordinary support of conservation” through wildlife art.
Under the auspices of the Art and Wildlife Conservation Project, two unique collectable Fine Art Canvas Limited Edition reproductions, called ‘Emblem of Qatar’ (Arabian Oryx, Oil Painting) and ‘Rheem Gazelle of Zikrit’ (Rheem Gazelle, Oil Painting), are now available through the website of The Art of BAS www.BAS-ART.com
Funds raised will be directed towards the conservation activities carried out by AWWP in Qatar as well as the in-situ conservation projects funded by AWWP around the world.
Meanwhile, the Al Wabra Wildlife Preservation has purchased the Concordia Farm in north-eastern Brazil, as an area for the future release of one of the world’s rarest birds, the Spix’s Macaw.
Owned and founded by Sheikh Saoud bin Mohamed bin Ali al-Thani on land that was formerly an estate owned by his family, the reserve at Al Wabra, near Shahaniya, is a state-of-the art breeding and research centre for some of the world’s rarest and most endangered species of birds and mammals.
It has achieved pioneering success in the captive propagation and research of a number of highly endangered species, among them the Spix’s Macaw, the Lear’s Macaw, the Somali Wildass and Birds of Paradise, of which it has the largest breeding collection in the world.
In addition to the captive breeding efforts in Qatar, AWWP has also initiated a number of in-situ conservation projects in other countries for protecting species in their natural habitat.
Located in Bahia State in the district of Curaca, the 2,200 hectare Concordia Farm is within the most significant former range of the Spix’s Macaw, a large and spectacularly beautiful bright blue bird, which is now extinct in the wild.
Fewer than a hundred Spix’s macaws were in captivity world-wide, but Sheikh Saoud acquired a number from private collections in the Philippines and Switzerland, and a breeding programme to save the bird from total extinction was begun at Al Wabra.
Now, more than 50 birds, representing about 75% of the entire known population of Spix’s Macaws, are at Al Wabra.
There were initial difficulties to overcome. Because all the captive birds were almost certainly descended from a few individuals, there were inbreeding problems, with some eggs failing to hatch, and also behavioural problems. But the number of chicks successfully reared increased annually, and the future of the bird now seems assured.
AWWP has secured Concordia Farm for the Spix’s Macaw and plans to allow the land to return to a more natural state by the removal of domestic livestock. In the long term, it is hoped that this land will prove to be a valuable habitat resource for future efforts to return Spix’s Macaws back to the wild. |
