Dubai (Pvt) Camel Breeding Center, located in Wadi Safa near Dubai Hills used artificial insemination of chilled semen.Daily headlines from the UAE and around the world brought to you by Gulf News. See more at: http://gulfnews.com/gntv
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00:00Meet Bint Shaheen, the future of camel racing.
00:09The four-day-old female calf was born on Friday, January 12 at the Dubai Private Limited Camel
00:15Breeding Centre and is believed to be the world's first camel calf conceived using frozen
00:21semen.
00:22The centre, located in Wadi Safa near Dubai Hills, used artificial insemination of chilled
00:28semen stored at minus 196 degrees Celsius, collected from a choice and champion stallion
00:35named Shaheen, now retired from camel racing.
00:39Shaheen's semen was collected and frozen 13 months ago and then thawed for use to breed
00:45Bint Shaheen.
00:47The principle is similar to how sperm bank works.
00:50Dr. Jahangir, the director of the project, said the idea of using frozen semen to breed
00:56camels at the centre was proposed by the centre's owner, Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid
01:02Al Maktoum, deputy ruler of Dubai.
01:04The good stallions which are retired from the racing, they have a very short lifespan
01:11of the breeding, so how we can somehow or the other we can preserve the genetic materials
01:18for the future.
01:19So the first pilot project was being conducted in Pakistan, in Pakistan research institutes
01:27in Islamabad and we are almost four years before and from there we just collect the
01:35data and the major projects we have initiated here because we have more know-how here in
01:43this particular part of the world for the camels, so we are in that process you know
01:47to making not only the preservation of those genetic materials from the stallions but at
01:55the same time we are switching to the second phase in which we are doing the embryo transplant
02:02and either we have to take the single embryo or the supervolate and we harvest to the females
02:10you know the recipient and we just offer the females to the stallions and we have a special
02:16device from there they call it artificial vagina and we have collected from there and
02:24those immediately transfers to the laboratory where we simply evaluate the motility, percentage
02:32of motility, the morphology and if they have like abnormal things so we discard those samples
02:39and which are like high strength 70-80% motility so we just try to freeze them which is again
02:47beneficial for us for our results.
02:50Camels are a big part of UAE's rich heritage and camel racing is one of the most loved
02:55traditional sport in the UAE.
02:56In camel breeding, an offspring from a good bloodline can fetch hundreds and thousands
03:02of dirhams.
03:03A camel born to prestigious parents that have both won several races are also believed to
03:08have good chances to win because of their good genes among other factors.
03:13Therefore, preserving the line of the elite stallions after they retire is important for
03:18camel breeders.
03:20Sonia Shah, Gulf News.