Bringing Biblical Deer to the Holy Land

As reported previously, we postponed our planned October/November release of Persian fallow deer because of unseasonably dry weather conditions. We’re so pleased to report that we released five deer into the wild at the Nahal Soreq nature reserve (an unfenced protected area near Jerusalem) at the beginning of February.

Two of the deer were fitted with trial GPS tracking collars which should be far more accurate and easier to use than radio telemetry tracking collars. The aim is to test how well these collars work before making a decision on further expenditure (they’re rather expensive!).

We look forward to letting you know in the next report how our deer are getting on.

Thank you for being a part of this project– we appreciate your generosity and support!

With warm wishes from -

Team Fallow Deer at the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo

In our last report we were looking forward to another release of deer into the wild at Nahal Soreq near Jerusalem in October/November of this year. However, weather conditions have been unseasonably dry this year – you may have seen the news reports of the huge wildfires that recently swept across Israel, these blazes got out of control very quickly because of the dry conditions. Usually we have had our first rains and there is plenty of green grazing available to sustain the released deer. Our team have monitored the conditions near the release site and they are not sufficient to release the deer at present (newly-released deer require optimal conditions in order to provide the best chance of survival).

Accordingly, the release has been postponed to January/February of 2017.

Some of the deer in the next release will be fitted with GPS tracking collars which are far more accurate and easier to use than radio telemetry tracking collars.

In the meanwhile, we continue to receive reports of sightings from the local community and we hope you will be as excited as we are to view the above photograph of a young male sighted recently in the wild.

Thank you for being a part of this project– we appreciate your generosity and support!

With warm wishes from Team Fallow Deer at the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo