The other Dubai: defending the emirate’s last patch of pristine desert

Defending Dubai’s last patch of pristine desert and its animals – how to see the ‘other side’ of the emirate
A conservation project working to safeguard the rare flora and fauna of the Dubai desert makes for a remarkable citizen science-focused holiday, finds Chris Zacharia

Where dune meets sky, sketched in the sand like a hieroglyph, we find our first sign: the jagged ‘w’ of two talon prints.

These prints are fresh, and they justify our 5am start. By midday, the sand’s diary of crisscrossing tracks left by nocturnal hunters like the pharaoh eagle owl have been erased by the remorseless wind. A species almost extinct in this region, the Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve (DDCR) has helped to reintroduce it. But to prove the owl’s presence – and the value of the reserve’s efforts – we need more than prints; we need evidence.

Silhouetted before me is Naswa, a cathedral of rock covered in crevices that could well shelter owl nests. “I’ll look into this one, you take the one on the left,” says Pete, who’s been on this expedition three times before, gesturing to two gaping crags. Like bathers dipping toes into boiling bathwater, we test each step – duly sending showers of stones down the mountainside.
https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/north-africa-middle-east/uae/dubai/dubai-desert-conservation-species-endangered-oryx-b2500033.html