Sir Bani Yas Wildlife Reserve

Protected since 1971 on the personal initiative of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, founder and first president of the United Arab Emirates, who made the island his personal desert reforestation and conservation project, Sir Bani Yas today holds one of the largest free-ranging populations of Arabian oryx, an antelope that went entirely extinct in the wild in 1972 and was successfully reintroduced to the Arabian peninsula from animals bred in captivity in zoos around the world, a global benchmark case in bringing back a species extinct in the wild.