Animals of the Bible: Living Links to Antiquity

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There were skeptics who refused to believe that the Sinai leopard (Panthera pardus jarvisi) still existed in Israel. They laughed at Giora Ilani and accused him of being a dreamer.

Ilani, chief zoologist with the Israeli Nature Reserves Authority (NRA), took the criticism in good spirit. He felt sure the leopard still prowled the cliffs above the Dead Sea. He had carefully read all the subtle, telltale signs. He had pieced all the clues together and was convinced that it was only a matter of time until the great spotted cat would show itself in Israel.

Ilani’s critics were silenced in the fall of 1974. A freshly killed Nubian ibex (Capra ibex nubiana) had been found in the steep cliffs above the oasis at Ein Gedi; it was obvious the nimble mountain goat had been a recent victim of a powerful and savage cat. Ilani was sure that the predator would eventually return to its kill, so he built a small blind nearby, climbed in, set up his camera, and waited.

Late in the night, Ilani heard some movement among the darkened rocks near the dead ibex. Moments later, he heard gnawing and chewing at the carcass. Ilani tripped the shutter of his pre-focused camera—electronic strobes stabbed the night with lightning-like flashes—and the surprised expression of a startled Sinai leopard was captured on film.

This became the first reliable sighting of the Sinai leopard in the twentieth century—the first hard evidence that the spotted cat known by Jeremiah, Isaiah, and many other prophets, saints, sinners and frightened shepherds, still existed in its ancestoral territory.

Since that night, Ilani has made many more observations and photographs of the leopards. His studies lead him to believe that there are at least two dozen leopards in Israel, and that their population is gradually increasing.

The rediscovery and biological recovery of the Sinai leopard, a sub-species presumed extinct for nearly a century, offers a good indication of the success of Israel’s overall conservation programs. Major predators cannot experience biological recoveries unless the prey species upon which they depend also recover, just as prey herbivores cannot recover unless the proper vegetation base is re-established. Dozens of other external factors enter the picture—supplies of water, protection from dangerous substances and pollutants, protection from stress caused by humans in wildlife habitat—and they must be in a suitable state before Nature can flourish with renewed vigor.

Conservation in modern Israel marks the first substantive effort to reverse an environmental degeneration which had been getting progressively worse since the days of the Romans. These conservation efforts have been quite broad, encompassing land use, environmental quality, protection of plants, and many other fields. The Israeli wildlife restoration program serves as a compelling example of what can be done through good planning and thorough execution of those plans.

Generally, the Israelis are trying to restore every wild animal which inhabited the land during the Biblical era and which still might reasonably be expected to survive in a small, modern state. Today, Biblical wildlife can be separated into three categories:

1. Extinct species, such as the Judean lion and Syrian wild ass, which have been eliminated from any possible restoration;

2. Extirpated species, such as the Arabian oryx and Mesopotamian fallow deer, which once lived in the Holy Land but have been chased from their ancestral homes by the stress and pressures of civilization; and,

3. Remnant species, such as the Nubian ibex and dorcas gazelle, which survived in Israel but, because of habitat destruction, hunting and other factors, were reduced to a fraction of their natural populations.

The simple identification of species which existed in Israel during the Biblical era is a major task itself.

Often, the identification of extinct and extirpated species demands the collaboration of a half-dozen disciplines, and even then the identification is often tentative. Take, for example, the dishon. This animal is mentioned only once in the Bible (Deuteronomy 14:5) in a list of religiously edible (kosher) ruminants.^a Since Biblical law requires an animal to have a split hoof in order to qualify for this classification, we assume the dishon has a split hoof and that it is also in the ruminant digestion classification. Etymology helps by explaining that the Hebrew dishon is derived from a verb meaning “to leap,” and this tells us a little more about our mystery animal.

Genealogy also lends a few clues. Many ancient tribes of the Middle East identified with wild animals that inhabited their territories. This was true both of Hebrew tribes such as Naphtali, which identified itself with the deer that was common in Naphtali’s Galilean homeland, and of non-Hebrew tribes, such as Asad (lion) hill dwellers and Kuraysh (shark) shore dwellers.

There was also a tribe of dishon, and they were “the chiefs of the Horites, the sons of Seir in the land of Edom” (Genesis 36:21). It might be assumed that dishon once lived in or near the land of Edom, southeast of the Dead Sea, beside the broad Arava Valley.

The Greek translation of the Bible, known as the Septuagint, calls this animal a pygarg, which means “white rumped.” The name Pygarg has been carried into the King James Version without translation.

Since the dishon is mentioned only once in the Bible, it might be assumed that it was quite rare, even in antiquity.

During the mid-nineteenth century, the British naturalist H. B. Tristram wandered down the Arava making his survey of Palestine. He was in the very shadow of the mountains of Edom when he saw “a scarce and very large Antelope.” It was a graceful creature with long, spiraling horns, and broad feet which helped it leap easily across the loose desert sands. The antelope was a cloven-hoofed, cud-chewer, and it had an unmistakable white rump.

No guarantees come with this identification, but today it does appear that the addax (Addax nasomaculata) is the dishon of the Bible.

The identification of other animals offers similar challenges. Indeed, the translation of the Bible into English has created problems in this field because the British scholars who gave us the King James Version often insisted on populating the Holy Land with their own British animals. You’ll find no gazelles in the King James Version, but there are plenty of red deer, hinds, roes and other critters common to the forests outside London.

The identification of species in the Bible is especially important for those which have been extirpated from the land. For example, there is ample record that deer grazed in the forests of Mt. Carmel throughout the Biblical era—but there are many species of deer in the world, so exact identification must be made before any restoration program can be conducted. In this case, evidence pointed to the Mesopotamian fallow deer (Dama dama mesopotamica), an extremely rare creature which, until recently, was found in a wild state only in a few isolated reserve areas of Iran. During the last days of the Shah’s rule, arrangements for the live capture of eight Mesopotamian fallow deer were made, and the animals were taken, crated, and loaded aboard the last El Al flight from Teheran in December, 1978. The Mesopotamian fallow deer presently living in a nature reserve on Mt. Carmel may be the only wild members of their species alive today.

In some cases, the animal which inhabited the Holy Land during the Biblical era is extinct. But with the reinvigoration of natural areas in modern Israel, the ecological niche once filled by the extinct animal reappears. When this has occurred, the Israelis have chosen to introduce the closest living relative of the extinct animal and then have carefully monitored the situation until they are sure the substitution functions properly. The ostrich is a good example.

Writers of the Bible used the ostrich as a symbol for just about anything they could find wrong with people. Various passages identify the ostrich as being cruel, unclean, mournful, forgetful, stupid and the inheritor of pagan ruins. Although the ostrich seems like a species that everybody would be anxious to avoid, our century still managed to pursue the Holy Land’s native ostrich (Struthio camelus syriacus) into extinction. The last of its kind was killed and eaten in the Arabian Desert during World War II.

Other races of ostrich still exist, however, and Israeli conservationists selected the Ethiopian ostrich (Struthio camelus ethiopus) to replace their native race of this great bird.

Thus, seven years ago an Israeli team went to Ethiopia and live-captured a dozen and a half ostrich chicks. The birds have since matured within the 12,000 acres of the Negev’s Hai Bar Reserve, and are raising broods of their own. As their population increases and they adapt to the local ecosystems, birds not needed for the breeding programs will be gradually released into the wild to assume their rightful place in nature.

Meanwhile, experts in various disciplines are contributing to the biologist’s knowledge of species so that the restoration programs can proceed with the clearest possible understanding of the ostrich’s place in Israeli ecology. For example, amateur archaeologist Yehuda Friedman added to what was known about the ostrich’s ancient habitat when he discovered five intact ostrich eggs, plus several fragments, in a clutch unearthed about two hundred meters south of Tel Michal during January, 1978. The discovery, reported in the Spring, 1980, issue of Israel: Land and Nature, confirmed that this giant, flightless bird inhabited the Plain of Sharon, near present day Herzliya Pituah. The egg shells were carbon-dated at the Weizmann Institute as being between 5810 and 5490 years old, thereby establishing the species in the region during the Chalcolithic Era.

The find also suggests that the Levantine Coast, as is suspected by many students of its history, wasn’t as lush with vegetation as our older textbook descriptions of the Fertile Crescent would have us believe. The ostrich is a bird of deserts and sparse grasslands and simply could not exist in forested areas.

Focal points for much of the wildlife restoration program are Israel’s Hai Bar reserves. One is located in the Arava Valley, about 40 kilometers north of Eilat and serves as a captive breeding facility for desert and arid ecosystem species. Another is located on Mt. Carmel and serves animals being restored to Mediterranean scrub oak ecosystems. A third is being planned for the Galilee and its cooler, wetter habitats.

A major driving force behind the Hai Bar program is Avraham Yoffe. As one of Israel’s most popular battlefield commanders, General Yoffe earned a reputation for unorthodox tactics that yielded effective results. It was said he could turn every stone in the desert to his advantage.

In 1964, the General turned his own popularity to his land’s advantage by retiring from the army and becoming the first director of the Nature Reserves Authority. From this post, he maneuvered, pushed, negotiated, and generally got his general’s way to restore nature in Israel.

Yoffe is well known for his unilateral proclamation of the Second Law of Return. The first Law of Return, which required an act of the Israeli parliament, guarantees every Jew anywhere in the world the right to return to the land of his ancestors. Yoffe’s Second Law of Return reaches out to the other creatures which inhabited Israel during the Biblical era. They, too, have the right to return to the land of their ancestors and General Yoffe is doing everything he can to help them.

As a result of these efforts:

• Ostriches were brought from Ethiopia,

• African wild ass were brought from Somalia,

• Asiatic wild ass and Mesopotamian fallow deer were brought from Iran,

• Arabian oryx were brought from the Los Angeles Zoo,

• Addax were brought from the Catskill Game Park.

The refuges, reserves, game parks and zoos of the world were searched for creatures which belonged in Israel, and as they were found, efforts were made to obtain them and return them to their natural homeland.

Because many of these species are so rare, they require extraordinary protection, monitoring, supplementary foods and veterinary care. The Arabian oryx (Oryx leucoryx), for example, is extinct in the wild and only exists in zoos. This, incidentally, is the “unicorn” of the King James Version of the Bible (Numbers 23:22, 24:8; Deuteronomy 33:17). Also, because many of the animals in the restoration program are the progeny of several generations of zoo breeding, it is extremely important that their readaptation to the natural environment be managed carefully.

The simple shift from zoo foods to natural desert grasses is something of a shock and needs to be accomplished in stages.

The responsible stewardship of the wildlife restoration program has had extraordinary successes. Each animal brought into the program has contributed to an increased population and continued improvements toward restoration. Some, such as the Nubian ibex, which numbered a few score as the restoration program began, now are counted in the thousands throughout the mountainous areas of the Negev and Judean deserts.

Others, such as the Asiatic wild ass (Equus hemionis onager) have adapted so well, and reproduced so well, that a portion of the Hai Bar herd will be released to the wild within the coming year.

The restoration of the dorcas gazelle (Gazella dorcas saudiya) may also precipitate the return of another wild animal, just as the restoration of the ibex led, as we have seen, to the return of the Sinai leopard. In the spring of 1980, Giora Ilani was surveying a broad gravel plain in the central Negev when, near mid-day, he found a freshly killed gazelle. The gazelle had been slain with nearly surgical precision. Its larynx had been crushed. This is not the way of the hyena or wolves which inhabit the region—they pursue prey and tear at its flanks, leaving a messy kill. Nor is it the way of the nocturnal leopard, which is the worst of the tooth and claw brawlers. Anyway, an adult gazelle could outrun any of those animals in broad daylight on a level plain.

Ilani now thinks that there is but one creature which could have taken the gazelle under the apparent circumstances, and this is the fastest mammal on earth—the cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus). Today there are not as many skeptics as there were when Ilani said there were leopards living in Israel.

Wildlife restoration in Israel extends beyond the common efforts found elsewhere in the world. This is not only the restoration of nature, or an attempt to repair an injured world so that it can be more habitable for all. It is also the rescue of living links to the Bible. It is the preservation of important clues to the origins of monotheism, Western thought and culture. Without knowing what these animals are, and how they behave, the Bible scholar is deprived of much meaning in the study of the Scripture.

Without understanding the agility and fleetness of a Mediterranean fallow deer, who could fully understand this version of the day of redemption: “Then shall the lame man leap like a deer” (Isaiah 35:6).

Without viewing the regal, prancing gait of the Arabian oryx, who could comprehend: “he has as it were the strength of a wild ox” (Numbers 24:8).^b

And who, having never seen the majestic griffon (Gypaetus fulvus), which dwarfs even the American bald eagle, could truly appreciate: “As an eagle stirs up her nest, broods over her young, spreads abroad her wings, takes them, bears them on her pinions: So the Lord alone did lead him [Jacob] and there is no strange god with him.” (Deuteronomy 32:11–12).

Thousands of passages in the Bible make reference to animals. Often, these creatures appear in symbols, metaphors and similes to enhance the prophets’ words. Ancient Hebrews knew of the fallow deer, the oryx and the griffon, and if modern man wants to reap the full meaning of a Scripture written by and for these ancients, we must more intimately understand their language as they understood it, we must more fully understand their world and the living creatures which were so much a part of their daily lives.

There were skeptics who refused to believe that the Sinai leopard (Panthera pardus jarvisi) still existed in Israel. They laughed at Giora Ilani and accused him of being a dreamer.