On a quiet morning in the hills of the western Galilee, a group of hikers stopped in surprise. Between the oak trees stood a reddish-brown deer with white spots on its back. It looked at them for a moment, then disappeared into the forest. The hikers had just seen one of the rarest animals in the Middle East: the Persian fallow deer.
Thousands of years ago, these deer were common in the region. They are mentioned in the Bible, where they are called yachmur, and their bones have been found at many archaeological sites. But over the centuries, hunting and the loss of forests pushed them toward extinction. By the early twentieth century, they had disappeared from the Land of Israel completely, and for a time scientists believed that the species was gone everywhere.
Then, in the 1950s, a small population was discovered in a remote area of south-western Iran. In 1978, shortly before the revolution in Iran, a handful of the deer were flown to Israel. They were taken to a breeding center on Mount Carmel, where they were protected and encouraged to reproduce.
Breeding them was slow work, because a female usually gives birth to only one fawn a year. Eventually, however, the herd grew large enough for the next stage. In 1996, the first deer were released into the wild in the western Galilee. Before their release, they spent time in a fenced area, where they learned to find food on their own and became used to the local landscape.
The project has not been easy. Some of the released deer were killed by wild dogs or hit by cars. Each animal is followed closely, and some wear collars that send signals showing where they are. Still, the program is considered a success. Today several hundred Persian fallow deer live in the wild in Israel, in the Galilee and in the Jerusalem hills.
For the scientists involved, the project is about more than one species. "When a large animal returns to the forest, the whole ecosystem changes," one ecologist explained. "The deer eat certain plants, spread seeds and become food for predators. Bringing back the deer helps bring back the forest itself."