Rawdat Al Faras
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Rawdat Al Faras () is a district in
Qatar Qatar, officially the State of Qatar, is a country in West Asia. It occupies the Geography of Qatar, Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it shares Qatar–Saudi Arabia border, its sole land b ...
located in the
municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...
of
Al Khor Al Khor (; also spelled ''Al Khawr''), officially Al Khor and Al Thakhira, is a Municipalities of Qatar, municipality in northeastern Qatar. Al Khor (city), Al Khor City, the municipal seat, is located on the northeast coast of Qatar, around f ...
. It is best known for its research station.


Etymology

In
Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
, "rawda" is a term used to denote a depression rich in vegetation due to water and sediment run-off. The second part of the name, "faras", translates to
mare A mare is an adult female horse or other equidae, equine. In most cases, a mare is a female horse over the age of three, and a filly is a female horse three and younger. In Thoroughbred horse racing, a mare is defined as a female horse more th ...
, and was given because a wild mare was once found in the area.


Geography

Rawdat Al Faras is situated in north-central Qatar. It forms the southernmost extension of the middle sector of Qatar's
interior plain The Interior Plains is a vast physiographic region that spreads across the Laurentian craton of central North America, extending along the east flank of the Rocky Mountains from the Gulf Coast region to the Arctic Beaufort Sea. In Canada, it e ...
region. The area around Rawdat Al Faras, as part of this middle sector, has a surface that gradually increases in elevation from north and east towards the south and west, with heights ranging between to .


Houbara Breeding Center

A breeding center for
houbara bustard The African houbara (''Chlamydotis undulata''), also known as the houbara bustard (''houbara'' from for bustards in general), is a relatively small bustard native to North Africa, where it lives in arid habitats. The global population is listed ...
s is centered in the district. It received a donation of 1,065 houbaras from a UAE government-funded organization in 2014.


Wild Animals Containment Center

The Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME) established the Wild Animals Containment Center in Rawdat Al Faras as a permanent shelter for stray dogs and
cats The cat (''Felis catus''), also referred to as the domestic cat or house cat, is a small domesticated carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species of the family Felidae. Advances in archaeology and genetics have shown that the ...
. The government launched ''Rifq'' (translating to mercy) campaign in 2021 to catch and house all of the wild animals in this center. Authorities have been accused of rounding up dogs from humane shelters and forcefully relocating them to the center.


Research station

Established in 1976, Rawdat Al Faras Research Station is among the oldest research stations in the country. It occupies an area of 517,000 square meters. Activities engaged in at the center include consultation services for local farms,
date palm ''Phoenix dactylifera'', commonly known as the date palm, is a flowering-plant species in the palm family Arecaceae, cultivated for its edible sweet #Fruits, fruit called dates. The species is widely cultivated across North Africa, northern A ...
research, field surveys of local fauna, and selling and donating palm tree seeds and seedlings. The station consists of a water reservoir and two specialized facilities that dry the palm trees, extract their pollen and provide storage for their dried fruit. There 24 growing plots, of which five are palm tree plantations, two of which host over 1,200 specimens. In recent years, the station has been focused on its development of a palm atlas, which will serve as a genetic database for researchers across the GCC.


Zoo

It was reported in 2018 that a
zoo A zoo (short for zoological garden; also called an animal park or menagerie) is a facility where animals are kept within enclosures for public exhibition and often bred for conservation purposes. The term ''zoological garden'' refers to zoology, ...
would be opening in Rawdat Al Faras in the near future. Its specimens will be transferred from Al Khor Zoo. When Doha Zoo closed for maintenance in 2012, with plans to transform it into a safari park that would be 3-7 times the size of the current zoo, some animals were relocated to Rawdat Al Faras, as well as the Al Khor Zoo.


References

Populated places in Al Khor {{Qatar-geo-stub