Does anyone have any information on.............?

Question

Israel's endangered species?

websites are extremely helpful..

Answer 1

In ancient times, and in the not so distant past Israel was home to many animal species which today are extinct in this region. Perhaps we humans are not so upset that predators like lions, bears, crocodiles and cheetahs no longer roam the Israeli countryside as they once did, but the disappearance of these formidable predators is part of a general decline in native species which also saw the local extinction of more docile local animals such as fallow and roe deer, Arabian oryx and the onager, a kind of wild ***. Furthermore, with the extinction or drastic decline in top-level large predators, the surviving species they prey upon have increased in some areas with no way to curb them other than hunting by humans, the very act which has already wiped out so many native large animals.

While the local Asiatic lion seems to have been eradicated by the time of the Crusades, around the thirteenth century, most of the others became extinct in the Levant region between 70-120 years ago due to the widespread use of guns and later mechanised vehicles in hunting. Some of these animals, such as the native sub-species of ostrich and onager were completely eradicated, while others only became extinct in the immediate region (Israel and neighbouring countries such as Syria, Jordan and Lebanon).

Fallow deer fawn  

Many of the less-fearsome animals which were once extinct in this region are now being reintroduced to Israel by the Hai Bar (Hebrew for wildlife) project; these include fallow deer, roe deer, the Arabian oryx, ostriches and onagers (a type of wild ***).

To the best of my knowledge there are no plans to try and reintroduce the large predators, but you can see them in captivity. The Syrian brown bear and Asiatic lion for example can be seen at Jerusalem's Biblical Zoo and crocodiles are bred at several crocodile farms around the country, such as Hamat Gaderr near the Sea of Galilee.

Young Arabian oryx  

The Hai Bar project has several sites such as the temperate Mount Carmel forest site in northern Israel, the Yotvata site in the Arava desert in the south and part of the Biblical Zoo in Jerusalem. Their research and breeding programmes aim to return native Israeli animals to the wild, and where these animals have become extinct they try to re-introduce the most closly related sub-species or species.

The Ethiopian Ostrich is the closest surviving relative of the now extinct local ostrich, and has been bred in captivity for quite a while now at the desert Hai Bar site. A small flock has recently been released into the wild in southern Israel where their closely related Israeli sub-species once roamed.

Onager (Asiatic wild ***) at the Hai Bar  

Two herds of onagers have been successfully re-introduced to the wild at two locations,Makhtesh Ramon (the Ramon Crater), a huge crater in Israel's Negev Desert, and at another site in the Arava Desert. These wild asses (the biblical pereh) were never domesticated and once inhabited all of Israel's desert regions until they were hunted to extinction between 70-80 years ago. They have also become extinct in neighbouring countries.

i think the information would be sufficient and the websites to you have already given by the two persons who answered before me.

Answer 2

I haven't fully looked but these look okay:

http://www.geocities.com/jelbaum/haibar....

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsou...

Answer 3

And many many more on the web