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.
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