Are there deer in Israel? Yes there are! The Persian fallow deer (known as Dama Mesopotamica) is a deer species once native to all of the Middle East, but currently only living in Iran and Israel. It has been listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List since 2008, But after a captive breeding program, the population has rebounded from only a handful of deer in the 1960s to over a thousand individuals today.
In Hebrew, this deer is called Yahmur (יחמור) – the origin of the name is from the Aramaic word “Hamra” which means – ‘red’. In Arabic, too, the word “clay” indicates red, hence the name given to it by the red-colored soil from the Sharon region called “Hamra” soil.
The Persian fallow deer, some would also define it as the biblical deer stands out in its appearance with its reddish color dotted on its belly and back with a variety of prominent white dots. Also, during the mating season, the male’s intertwined, large, and impressive antlers are very prominent, though not in the dimensions of the European elk.
The deer’s antlers, as well as the ones of the other elk, are not permanent but grow every year anew as the mating season approaches in the fall, and fall off immediately thereafter until next year.
In the past, Persian fallow deer were very common throughout the Middle East and Persia. When the Torah enumerates the names of the kosher and permitted animals to eat, the deer also appears on the list.
Wild Hunt
The fact that these animals were a source of royal feasts and meals did not work in their favor at all. The number of deer was declining in parallel with the growth of the human population.
They received the ‘last blow’ when the gunpowder was invented as the rifle allowed accurate hunting from a distance. The wild hunting led to the disappearance from the Middle East of both the Carmel deer and the Persian fallow deer, both towards the end of the 19th century. Moreover, even in the various zoos, the deer did not find their place.
It should be noted that a similar fate awaited the Israeli goat and gazelle. When the State of Israel was established, the numbers of animals in the country were depleted and very small, and they survived extinction only thanks to the establishment of the Society for the Protection of Nature and the enactment of restrictive hunting laws, which saved them from extinction. Unfortunately, for the moose and deer, the State of Israel was founded too late.
In fact, in the first half of the twentieth century, the prevailing assumption among zoologists around the world was that there were no more Persian fallow deer left. But, in 1956, a herd of 25 of them was discovered in southern Iran, by chance and unexpectedly.
Discovery of the Last Persian Fallow Deer
The story of the discovery of the deer herd in Iran is quite remarkable. The extinct animal was discovered by a sharp-eyed German student, who discovered some unrecognized traces of an animal near a river called Des.
The student, who did not know the traces did not get lazy and brought to his zoologist professor the casting of the trace imprint he found, and it identified it as traces of the Persian fallow deer. To obtain the money and connections needed to save the species, the professor turned to the German Baron von Opel, the founder of the German Opel car factory, who was known as a nature lover himself. He was indeed quick to fund the cost of sending a delegation to Iran.
Indeed, the delegation managed to capture two pairs of deer that were transferred to the Opel Zoo in Germany, after an agreement was reached with the Persian Shah, that the offspring from the breeding would be returned to the nature reserves in Iran. Thus, the Persian fallow deer was brought back to life. In a recent survey in Iran, no more than 15 individuals were found in the wild, and several dozen more at the zoo.
The Deal that Brought the Persian Fallow Deer to Israel
So how did we get to the situation of today, where most of the Persian fallow deer population is living in Israel?
When the remains of the Persian fallow deer were discovered, the members of the Society for the Protection of Nature and later the Nature Reserves Authority were alerted and began to work to return the deer to Israel.
In 1975, about twenty years after the discovery of the herd of deer in Iran, the Persian Shah’s brother, Prince Abdul Raza, secretly arrived in Israel, bringing his yard hunter with him. The ‘deal’ agreed between the director-general of the Society for the Protection of Nature, Major General Avraham Yaffe, and the prince was that in exchange for particularly large antler horns, an adequate return would be given.
The Society of the Protection of Nature knew exactly what they would ask for, but the prince did not know it. He received the “donation” of the horns without the need for the help of the hunter, straight from the head of an old deer that just ended its life (naturally) in the Yotvata Hai-Bar Nature Reserve. The Prince was so satisfied that he offered a pair of Mercedes cars in return, and was surprised to find that the Israelis wanted a pair of deer instead. The prince promised to provide it as soon as possible.
For various reasons, the “exchange” was delayed for three whole years, until in 1978, on the eve of the outbreak of the Islamic revolution in Iran, the Israelis received the message: “Come now or we will never be able to get the deer out.”
Getting the Deer
The operation was not simple at all. An emissary was sent to Iran, and although he was not portrayed as an Israeli, at a certain point it was discovered and he was immediately expelled from Iran. But, with Israeli Hutzpa, on his way to the airport, the messenger stopped at a local nature reserve on the way and loaded four female deer into his car.
The four deer were to accompany a lion and a tiger, the symbol of the Shah. But at the airport, an angry mob stormed the lion and the tiger and caused their deaths. In somewhat of an action scene, the deer was loaded into the belly of the plane together with the deported Israeli team, and flown to Amsterdam. In fact, in the last flight that left Iran before the revolution, the future of Persian fallow deer in Israel was determined.
The four deer were then transferred to the Tel Aviv Zoo and at the same time two male deer were purchased from a zoo in Germany, which on their way to Israel did not seem to form too deep friendships, and one of them killed the other. The remaining deer, together with the four smuggled females, formed the first breeding nucleus in Israel in the Hai-Bar nature reserve near Haifa.
Release Into Nature
The first deer received very dedicated care and the first male was able to fulfill his duty and successfully breed all four females. The young fawns felt safe, protected, and calm without fear of the danger of predators and various pests. From this nucleus later grew the herd of Persian fallow deer in Israel, to be the largest collection of the species in the world.
In 1996, less than twenty years after the first deer was brought to Israel, their return to nature began. A small herd of deer was first released to the Nahal Kziv Reserve in Western Galilee. Slowly they acclimatized to an area that offered them both extensive kinds of wood and abundant water. Six years later, in 2002, six more wild deer, equipped with an electronic chip, were allowed to join the herd in Nahal Kziv.
Later, additional deer were released both to the Carmel itself and the Nahal Sorek Reserve, in the Jerusalem mountains. The first deer were released into the wild in the Nahal Sorek Reserve in 2005. The Nahal Sorek Reserve, which covers an area of about 14,000 dunams, offers the deer the cover of trees in the woods, edible grass, and running water in the river itself.
In total, there are currently about 500 Persian fallow deer living in Israeli nature, about 200 of them in breeding centers and about 300 free-ranging in the wild throughout the country, of which at least about 60 individuals and possibly more, live in the Nahal Sorek Reserve.
In a reality in which different animals are disappearing from our world every year, Israel can make an impressive achievement by bringing back to life, and to nature, in particular, the same animals that were considered extinct for decades.
About the Persian Fallow Deer
The Persian fallow deer is an impressive animal both in its appearance, in its color, and its dimensions. Apart from the reddish hue that sets it apart, its dimensions are impressive when the males are significantly larger than the females, both in body and antlers.
The body length of the deer may reach up to 1.5 meters, its height about 1.2 meters, and its tail is short as 10-20 cm. The weight of the male may reach 100 kg while that of the female is smaller than him, up to 60 kg.
Apart from its red color dotted with plenty of white dots, the lower part of the abdomen is adorned with white and smooth fur. Its life expectancy in the wild is 14-17 years.
The antlers of males in their youth are not yet branched, and when they grow another is added each year. The adult males’ antlers are branched and they grow until the mating season in the fall. At the end of the mating period, the antlers fall off, as they weigh down on the males, and thus a period of relaxation, rest, and less risk is created until the next mating season.
