The heads of the World Open Foundation for Animal Rehabilitation and Reintroduction (WOFARR) and Feldman Ecopark had an official visit to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Armenia, where they signed several cooperation agreements.
In particular, the WOFARR’s president and the founder of Feldman Ecopark, Ukrainian MP Alexander Feldman signed memorandums of understanding and cooperation in the field of international animal protection activity with the acting director of Almaty Zoo (Kazakhstan) Aigul Tuleeva, the director of Tashkent Zoo (Uzbekistan) Bakhodir Musaev, director of Yerevan Zoo (Armenia) Ruben Khachatryan and the director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Wildlife and Cultural Assets (Armenia) Garabed Asadurian.
“One of the main fields of our future cooperation is the joint projects aimed at breeding and reintroduction of the birds of prey. This project is interesting because we can unite the efforts of the East and the West aimed at the rare birds rescuing: to implement the programme with the participation of Asian and European (particularly, the Dutch) organizations with the centre in Ukraine. During the meetings, we have developed the roadmap of our relations, and the cooperation in different fields is possible in the future: exchange of experience, transfer of animals, and the opportunity to hold joint events online,” Alexander Feldman told.
In Kazakhstan, Ukrainian delegation learnt the opportunities of Almaty Zoo and the Sunkar farm of birds of prey. “Almaty Zoo is considered one of the leading one in the world by the birds of prey. They have not only a big collection of birds, they are the professionals in breeding of saker falcons, cinereous vultures, golden eagles, Steller’s sea eagles, bald eagles, Eurasian eagle-owls, Himalayan vultures, Egyptian vultures, black kites, they also have great opportunities for exchange – they are able to provide more than 100 birds of prey to participate in the programmes. In turn, we also have something to offer to our counterparts for exchange: alpaca, African spurred tortoises, lemurs and other rare species, which are breeding successfully here within the framework of the programme of creation of artificial populations,” Feldman Ecopark’s director Vitalii Ilchenko informed.
Moreover, Almaty Zoo expressed interest in the activities of the Feldman Ecopark Centre for Psychosocial Rehabilitation concerning the issues of animal-assisted therapy.
The meeting in Tashkent Zoo was in the format of familiarization. The parties expressed interest in cooperation in the field of breeding of the birds of prey (like bearded vulture, griffon vulture, cinereous vulture).
According to the prior arrangement with Yerevan Zoo, it plans to give to Feldman Ecopark griffon vultures, bearded vultures and jaguar male based on the exchange programme. In turn, the WOFARR will help the workers of Armenian farm of preservation and reintroduction of brown bear to establish contacts with the counterparts in Ukraine and to attend shelters for bears in our country.
