The International Fund for Houbara Conservation, IFHC, announced yesterday that it has scored another achievement with the hatching of 48,213 houbara bustards since the beginning of the year.

The move is part of the IFHC programme to breed houbara bustards in captivity and reintroduce them to a number of countries.

About 46,000 houbara bustards hatched in captivity last year, while the IFHC stepped up efforts to breed Asian and North Africa houbara bustards, which are different types of endangered species, in four conservation centres in the UAE, Morocco and Kazakhstan.

Mohammed Saleh Al Baidani, Director-General of the IFHC, said the production of such huge numbers of houbara bustards in the captivity "culminated the three-decade long efforts to step up breeding of houbara bustards in captivity at Al Ain Zoo."