The future of UAE camel racing

Gulf News

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.

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