Great turnout for the Arabian Oryx movie event in Darb Al-Saai

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The Organizing Committee for the National Day Celebrations has provided the right atmosphere for visitors in Darb Al Saai to enjoy watching the movie with the presence of a large cinema screen and comfortable seats.

In addition, there is a group of Arabian Oryx animals next to the film screening area to allow visitors to take memorial photos with them.

Salem Hussain Al Safran, the Assistant Director of the Natural Reserves Department at the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, who is in charge of the event, said that the aim of the Oryx film is to highlight this endangered animal and introduce the masses and visitors to Darb Al Saai about it as a Qatari heritage, in the form of a story between a mother and her newborn, as the film deals with the life cycle of this animal collectively, the nature of the land in which it lives, its harmony with the rest of the animals in that environment, and how the mother helps this newborn how to coexist in the surrounding environment.

Al Safran added by saying that this animal has important symbolism in the State of Qatar and is found as a logo for Qatar Airways, for example, and therefore it is one of the distinctive signs in Qatar, which the state takes great care of, as it has created many reserves for it to preserve it from extinction.

He pointed out that the first thing the state did to preserve this animal was the establishment of the Oryx Breeding Center in 1979 at Al shahaniya Farm, and it started with five twenty heads of Arabian Oryx. In 1991, the second reserve was established, which is Asheerj reserve in the north of Qatar, and in 1997 Al-Mashabiyya reserve was established in the southwest of Qatar, which is close to the Qatari-Saudi borders. This animal was transferred to those reserves in order to reproduce naturally, in addition to studying these habitats because its topography is different, and we used to see the differences between the animals that live everywhere according to their nature, and this helped us to know the appropriate environment that goes with this animal.

The Assistant Director of the Department of Natural Reserves said that these reserves have a special veterinary cadre of doctors, nurses and assistants who take samples for these animals and verify their health, in addition to that they carry out an annual vaccination process for them to confront diseases.

He said that there are programs carried out by the ministry for the Arabian Oryx, including the genetic fingerprint program, with the aim of focusing on the breeding of good quality of these animals, where the genetic fingerprint identifies each species in numbers, where samples were taken from a number of Oryx and analyzed in cooperation with Weill Cornell Medicine to determine the series Reproduction, which will mate annually, with the aim of increasing a generation that can withstand harsh conditions, in addition to preserving the shape and aesthetics of this animal.

Source: Ministry of Culture