The Return of the Yachmur
An article about the Persian fallow deer, which disappeared from the Land of Israel and was brought back to the wild in the Galilee and the Jerusalem hills.
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1On 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 animals in the Middle East: the Persian fallow deer.
2Thousands 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 . 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.
3Then, in the 1950s, a small population was discovered in a 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 center on Mount Carmel, where they were protected and encouraged to .
4 them was slow work, because a female usually gives birth to only one 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.
5The 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 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.
6For the scientists involved, the project is about more than one species. "When a large animal returns to the forest, the whole changes," one ecologist explained. "The deer eat certain plants, spread seeds and become food for . Bringing back the deer helps bring back the forest itself."
📘 Glossary
- rarest - the least common
- extinction - when a kind of animal disappears completely
- remote - far away from towns and people
- breeding - keeping animals so they have babies
- reproduce - to have babies
- fawn - a baby deer
- collars - bands worn around an animal's neck
- ecosystem - all the living things in a place and how they depend on each other
- predators - animals that hunt other animals for food
Questions
Purpose and structure
1. Why does the writer begin the article with the hikers' story?Finding details
2. Give TWO pieces of evidence that the deer were common in the region in the past.Finding details
3. What pushed the deer toward extinction?Making inferences
4. Why was the discovery in Iran in the 1950s so important?Finding details
5. Where were the deer taken when they arrived in Israel?Finding details
6. Why was breeding the deer slow work?Reference words
7. In paragraph 4, the word "they" in "where they learned to find food" refers to…Finding details
8. Give TWO dangers that the released deer have faced.Word meaning
9. In paragraph 5, "the program is considered a success" means that the program is…Making inferences
10. What does the ecologist mean by "Bringing back the deer helps bring back the forest itself"?
Answer every question to get a score (0/10)