Dorcas Gazelle
The Fauna of the Land
The Dorcas Gazelle is a gazelle native to the deserts of the Middle East, including Israel. They are known for their slender, elegant bodies and distinctive horns, which are longer in males and curve upwards.
In This Photo: Dorcas Gazelle in the Negev Desert
Credit: MinoZig, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Dorcas Gazelle (Also known as Negev Deer) live in herds. The Dorcas Gazelle used to be found in various areas: in the south of Israel (the Judean desert, the Arava valley, and the southern Negev), in the Sinai, in Jordan, and the deserts of North Africa. One of its distinguishing features is the fact that it can adapt to being in deserts without the need to drink water. This is because he extracts the water he needs from liquids found in the acacia leaves that he usually eats. That’s why it was so common in desert areas.
The Dorcas Gazelle In Israel
The Dorcas Gazelle did not exist in the Land of Israel before the Holocene. The existing population represents remnants of a migration from North Africa that displaced the common deer from parts of the Negev and Sinai, starting about 10,000 years ago. Israel’s Negev Deer population is concentrated in the Arava and Southern Negev regions. In the 60s and 70s of the 20th century, the population of the Negev was almost destroyed due to uncontrolled hunting. Still, since the enforcement of the “Wildlife Protection Law,” the phenomenon has been curbed, and a gradual recovery is evident in the number of individuals observed.
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