Persian Fallow Deer

The Fallow Deer lived in the Land of Israel in the most ancient periods, and was hunted for food by cave dwellers. From evidence, it emerges that it was common in all the regions of Asia Minor and the Mediterranean. According to the English researcher Tristram, he himself saw it in 1863 on the road from Tiberias to Haifa, and also in 1866 in Tabor and the Upper Galilee.

Until the beginning of the twentieth century, the Carmel was a place of refuge for animals that had disappeared from the other regions of the country. The spread of the use of firearms for hunting purposes and the use of poisons in agriculture caused the extinction of the last Fallow Deer from the Carmel at the end of the 19th century. In the year 1923, Fallow Deer antlers were still sold in the markets of Jerusalem and Jerash (in the former Eastern Transjordan), and everyone thought that the animals themselves had become extinct from the world, until in 1956 about 30 Fallow Deer were discovered in southwestern Iran.

The saving of the species from extinction is credited to the German Baron von Opel, who funded a zoological expedition to the Khuzestan province, where the Fallow Deer were discovered. The expedition captured several Fallow Deer, some of which were left in northern Iran in a fenced and managed reserve, and some of which were transferred to Germany to the Opel Park. The Iran-Iraq War damaged the original habitat area of the Fallow Deer, but until 1988 there was information about dozens of them living in the reserve.

The Persian Fallow Deer returns to the country

In December 1978, four female Fallow Deer were brought in a special operation from Iran, with the help of the brother of the Persian Shah, just before the change of government in Iran. These females were released in the Carmel Wildlife Reserve, together with males that had been brought to Israel from the Opel Park in Germany earlier. Thus began the growth and development of the Israeli Fallow Deer herd.

Today there are about 500 Fallow Deer in the world, most of them in Israel. At least about 300 in the wild and the rest in breeding cores as the world breeding reserve. In 1996, the release of Fallow Deer from the acclimatization area in Nahal Kziv into the wild began, and in parallel, the Fallow Deer population at the Biblical Zoo was established as one of the zoo's nature conservation projects.

The breeding core and reintroduction to nature

The breeding core at the zoo numbers dozens of individuals, and each year between 10 and 15 fawns are born in our herd. Some of those fawns will be released into the wild upon reaching the age of about a year and a half. Since 2005, Fallow Deer from the zoo have been released into the Sorek Reserve in the Judean Hills successfully, so that today the second largest Fallow Deer population in the world has established itself in the Judean Hills, all as a result of the return of individuals from the zoo in cooperation with the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, which assists in monitoring and protecting the Fallow Deer in the field. The zoo continues to invest resources and monitor the animals even after the return to nature with the help of research based on observations, field cameras, and collars with GPS systems. From the beginning of the project until today, about two hundred Fallow Deer born at the zoo have been released to the wild in the Judean Hills. The breeding and reintroduction project for the Fallow Deer is part of the local and international efforts to rehabilitate populations of endangered animals.

Read about the latest release into the wild.

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Photo: Ariel Kedem