The following us an update to a 03 June posting. There are a series of photos posted at the paper's URL below
GULF NEWS (Dubai, United Arab Emirates) 25 June 05 A lizard's tale (Piers Grimley Evans)
Volunteers save dhubs threatened by the expansion of Abu Dhabi airport. Their new home: Sharjah Breeding Centre for Endangered Arabian Wildlife
Recently, an outcrop of sand and rock by Abu Dhabi’s airport hosted a historic encounter between man and reptile.
Here will soon stretch the level tarmac of a four-kilometre runway. For now, the sparse expanse of scrub is the scene of a groundbreaking rescue mission.
“It’s the first time in the UAE that a community of animals has been relocated as a result of an Environmental Impact Report,” said Chris Drew, the environmental scientist in charge of saving the area’s dhubs.
It is also a big upturn for creatures long regarded locally as a snack.
Early on a Thursday morning their wilderness home was invaded by a miscellaneous army of volunteers — eco-warriors, Emarati students, American building contractors, laddish British air-quality experts and one solitary hack — all eager to sacrifice their morning to save spiny-tailed lizards.
Which was especially good of us as we had just met one.
Before heading out on site, Drew had taken us through the basics of dhub-handling in a nearby prefab hut.
Out of a cardboard box he then produced a lichen-complexioned, pot-bellied, miniaturised extra from Jurassic Park.
“You must first control the tail,” he said, clasping firmly the fat, bristling appendage. “It hurts when they hit you with their tails.”
The lizard glared back with bright orangey-red eyes, lowered his leathery throat and let loose a long, warning hiss.
In reality, a dhub is just a toothless herbivore with an outsized attitude.
However, he represents an authentic monster-sized headache for Scadia, the supervisory committee for the Expansion of Abu Dhabi airport.
Unlike its international rivals, locked in edgy standoffs with fierce residents’ associations, Abu Dhabi airport might have expected few problems expanding into virgin desert.
But the obligatory Environmental Impact Report turned up a long-established lizard community slap bang in the middle of its planned runway.
Here, in fact, is probably the UAE’s highest concentration of dhubs — one every 20 or 30 yards.
“The worrying thing is that each time we go out we expect to find fewer,” says Drew.
“But we always find the same amount or even more.” The total number could well be as high as 400.
“You couldn’t just bulldoze the burrows. It would be inhumane and, besides which, it’s illegal,” says Drew.
A groundbreaking project seeks new homes for a colony of spiny-tailed lizards.
The dhub has been under the protection of UAE law for more than 20 years. It is also on the list of special concern for ERWDA, Abu Dhabi’s environmental agency, both due to habitat-destruction and to a puzzling popularity as pets — fuelling an international trade that has consumed well over 200,000 dhubs since 1977.
What’s more, this is a lizard of deep cultural resonance.
“It is the one lizard that all my students know,” says Drew Gardner, a lecturer at Zayed University Abu Dhabi and one of the project’s guiding experts.
“I came to see what a dhub looks like,” says one of a group of five student volunteers.
“My father talks about catching them in the desert. He said that they would go out into the desert, build a fire and catch and eat them. He said they taste like chicken.”
But what should Scadia do with its hundreds of lizards — now that the culinary option is ruled out?
The chosen solution was relocation. A new home would be found for them and – after an exhaustive series of checks — they would be tagged and set free.
Until then, the dhubs would rest in the capable hands of the experts of Sharjah Breeding Centre for Endangered Arabian Wildlife.
Damien Egan, the expert who will host them there, cannot wait to get his hands on them. “There is definitely interest in a scientific study,” he says.
“They would make a fantastic research group — an entire population, not just isolated, individual animals.”
This community could give insight into how a “super-vulnerable” animal can be protected.
It could also help resolve a “taxonomic flux” following the recent discovery that the UAE hosts not one but two species of dhub.
First, though, they have to be caught —which is where we non-experts came in. Fortunately, we were not expected to grab them ourselves. We merely had to locate their burrows.
Then, in the evening, traps baited with tomato and melon would be set next to our flags. With luck, the lizards would not resist the unexpected boost to their Spartan diet.
As our convoy pulled up the signs were definitely promising. One dhub sat sunning itself on the doorstep of its burrow. Another could be seen in profile perching on a rock higher up the slope.
Clutching a thick quiver of blue flags, Chris Drew gathered us around the narrow slot down which the basking dhub had vanished like a puff of smoke. We now knew what to look for.
Drew handed out the flags and his troops split into small groups bobbing in and out of view over the undulating terrain.
Oddly, the desert was circumscribed on one side by a palace, whose roof will presumably graze passing jets. But the desolation was authentic.
In the dust at our feet the only sign of human activity was a chipped flint and some dead goat’s intestines that a diet of string and shopping bags had converted into intricate plastic sculpture.
Gardner surveyed the terrain with approval. “Dhubs actually have rather specific requirements for habitat,’ he said. “They need the aeolianite or gravel to build their burrows.”
As expected, this outcrop was positively riddled with their subterranean hideaways.
Soon a steady stream of volunteers was trooping back to Drew’s 4WD for more flags. An especially penetrating whoop of joy recorded the success of a huge African-American runway constructor called Claude.
“It’s nice to see the environmental concern,” he said. “This is awesome — it’s what everybody over the world should be doing.”
Within an hour the wasteland resembled a mini-golf course with a hundred close-set holes. Gardner gazed at the forest of flags with a slightly preoccupied air.
“Scientifically it’s very interesting, but there are lots of complications,” he said.
“The problem is where to release them. They live for 20 or 30 years and you have to consider how safe the site will be — the trouble is that with the pace of development there is nowhere that is likely to be safe for 10 or 15 years.”
Still, for us unskilled volunteers the work was done. In a glow of beneficence we set off back to the prefab hut for brunch — by no means the first free meal at a dhub’s expense, but probably the first involving a dainty finger buffet and wide selection of juices.
A lizard's tale
