Dubai Safari Park announced a new opening date. The long-anticipated theme park, which was first announced almost six years ago, is schedules for completion as early as the next year.
Dubai Municipality official have recently shared that Dubai Safari Park is set to welcome its first visitors in Q3 2016. In 2013, it was announced that the zoo park will be completed until the end of 2014. That, however, did not happen since Dubai Safari’s launch date was once again moved but this time to 2015.
The reason for these delays is directly related to the fact that part of the construction process took part over a former landfill site. Nevertheless, the work on the project is reported to be quickly advancing at the moment. Currently, more than one-third of the park is ready. Moreover, last year, it was even rumoured that the zoo has hired a few employees although it is yet to open to the public.
Apart from these updates, details on the Dubai Safari Park remain pretty much unchanged. As it was stated initially, the zoo will cover nearly 120 hectares or almost 300 acres. The facility will be located in Al Warqa’s area and it will replace Dubai Zoo. Dubai Safari will also be a home of more than 1,000 animals which will be relocated from the Dubai Zoo on Jumeirah Road.
The only big change about the project is since its budget has increased from AED 150 million to AED 1 billion since 2013. One of the possible reasons for this may have to do with the fact that Dubai Safari Park is planned to be a quite innovative zoo. It will use electricity generated from solar energy. In addition, it will recycle and use the water it consumes for irrigation purposes.
Also, the zoo’s visitors will have the amazing chance to travel around the facility in air-conditioned vehicles if they are planning to enjoy a longer tour in the park. They will even be able to use 3D technology to observe nocturnal animals for which caves are a natural habitat.
Once completed, Dubai Safari Park will be among the largest zoos in the world in terms of size. It will be bigger even than San Diego Zoo, located in Balboa Park, San Diego, the National Zoological Gardens of South Africa and The Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium. Nevertheless, the Dubai Safari will offer fewer animal species compared to these zoos. But given its greater size, it will certainly welcome many new animals after its opening, which is now scheduled for the third quarter of 2016.
