Call it Operation Dumbo Drop.
Officials at Al Ain Wildlife Park and Resort, a combined zoo, botanical gardens and museum, are looking at buying an elephant. It would be a first for the Emirates and a complicated logistical challenge.
"Our visitor surveys tell us that our guests want to see elephants," said Michael Maunder, the chief collection, conservation and education officer of the park. "However, our facilities and master plan do not include plans for elephants ? but we are getting a lot of interest."
The possible addition of an elephant would be part of the large-scale procurement drive at the park, where visitors will be able to see re-creations of the world's deserts on safari four-wheel-drives.
Each of six deserts, including the Sonoran landscape of the south-west US and the arid environment of East Africa, will be complete with animals and plants from the native regions.
The estimated US$1 billion (Dh3.67bn) project will also include a resort, housing and museums. The first phase is planned to open in November next year.
The largest part of the project's procurement drive is plants. Trees, shrubs and succulents from up to 15 countries are being bought.
Jamie Hilyard, the landscape manager, is known as the "plant hunter" by his colleagues because he travels around the world buying vegetation.
They are growing aloe dichotoma in Kenya and shipping over trees such as the adansonia digitata, better known as the baobab, from markets in Thailand, Spain and Arizona.
Part of Mr Hilyard's job is to investigate the plants' places of origin to ensure they were not improperly taken from nature.
But transporting large animals presents some of the starkest challenges to zoos around the world.
Giraffes are usually moved over long distances only when they are young. At their peak height of about 5.5 metres, they do not safely fit in an aeroplane or a ship.
Elephants can be transported in wide-body cargo planes, such as the McDonnell Douglas DC-10.
bhope@thenational.ae
The%20specs
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The specs
Engine: 3.8-litre V6
Power: 295hp at 6,000rpm
Torque: 355Nm at 5,200rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 10.7L/100km
Price: Dh179,999-plus
On sale: now
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
The Comeback: Elvis And The Story Of The 68 Special
Simon Goddard
Omnibus Press
Know your cyber adversaries
Cryptojacking: Compromises a device or network to mine cryptocurrencies without an organisation's knowledge.
Distributed denial-of-service: Floods systems, servers or networks with information, effectively blocking them.
Man-in-the-middle attack: Intercepts two-way communication to obtain information, spy on participants or alter the outcome.
Malware: Installs itself in a network when a user clicks on a compromised link or email attachment.
Phishing: Aims to secure personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers.
Ransomware: Encrypts user data, denying access and demands a payment to decrypt it.
Spyware: Collects information without the user's knowledge, which is then passed on to bad actors.
Trojans: Create a backdoor into systems, which becomes a point of entry for an attack.
Viruses: Infect applications in a system and replicate themselves as they go, just like their biological counterparts.
Worms: Send copies of themselves to other users or contacts. They don't attack the system, but they overload it.
Zero-day exploit: Exploits a vulnerability in software before a fix is found.
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
Profile of Bitex UAE
Date of launch: November 2018
Founder: Monark Modi
Based: Business Bay, Dubai
Sector: Financial services
Size: Eight employees
Investors: Self-funded to date with $1m of personal savings
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
WHAT IS A BLACK HOLE?
1. Black holes are objects whose gravity is so strong not even light can escape their pull
2. They can be created when massive stars collapse under their own weight
3. Large black holes can also be formed when smaller ones collide and merge
4. The biggest black holes lurk at the centre of many galaxies, including our own
5. Astronomers believe that when the universe was very young, black holes affected how galaxies formed
Company Profile
Founder: Omar Onsi
Launched: 2018
Employees: 35
Financing stage: Seed round ($12 million)
Investors: B&Y, Phoenician Funds, M1 Group, Shorooq Partners
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