KARACHI: The year has begun with good news at the Safari park which has seen 19 births over the past few weeks, a visit to the facility showed on Saturday.

Among the new arrivals that consist of seven spotted deer, two black bucks, a chinkara gazelle and two mouflons, the special ones, according to the staff, are the Sindh ibex and urial babies.

`We are proud and happy to announce this, though therehave been births of other animals, too. Five babies were born in the Sindh ibex family while two in the urial herd, both highly endangered species,` said senior vet and additional director of Safari Park Dr Kazim Hussain.

According to Dr Hussain, the Sindh ibex, whose population is mainly restricted to the Khirthar National Park, is a bit difficult to breed. The same is true for urial (a wild sheep).

The Safari area is partially hilly that provided the animals with the right habitat, an important factor that helped in their breeding, he pointed out.The Safari park, he said, was the second government facility that housed the Sindh ibex. With the recent births, its number at the park has now risen to 13 four adult pairs and five babies.

Born in distinctive dark and light brown colours just like their parents, the ibex babies were found running together in their enclosure among female and male members.

The sight appeared to be dangerous to the kids as the adult males have long curved horns, but Dr Hussain said that they were being closely observed. `So far, the males have posed no dan-ger but if there is any indication that they could hurt the young ones, they will be shifted to the other enclosure.` He added that the babies were born to three females with a twin birth.

The total number of urial at Safari has risen to six, black bucks are now 117, spotted deer are 132 and mouflon 16.

`I think we have a great opportunity to introduce animais whose population is in surplus at the facility to a wild protected area. We are loolcing forward to cooperation from the wildlife department in this regard,` Dr Hussain said.