Persian fallow deer

The Persian fallow deer (Dama mesopotamica) is a species of deer that once inhabited most of West Asia, but is currently only found in the wild in Iran and Israel. Since 2008, it has been classified as an endangered species on the IUCN Red List. Owing to a focused program of captive breeding, the population of Persian fallow deer has rebounded from only a handful of deer in the 1960s to over a thousand deer in the 2010s. The species was re-introduced to Israel in 1978, thereafter reaching a stable wild population there, while it continues to occur naturally in Iran. There are smaller populations of Persian fallow deer in captivity at European zoos, particularly in Germany.

The Persian fallow deer prefers woodlands of tamarisk, oak and pistachio. It avoids roads, even when traffic is low, which limits its spread and movement.

Iran

The Persian fallow deer is a grazing herbivore, with grass comprising 60% of its diet along with leaves and nuts. Persian fallow deer home range sizes vary based on gender and age. Older male deer are more territorial than younger males; however, older females stay closer to the site within an average of 0.9 km (0.56 mi) where they were reintroduced, while younger females migrate an average of 2.3 km (1.4 mi) away from release site. Pregnancy lasts around 230 days, with females continuing to breed until around 15 years of age. The maximum lifespan is around 20 years. It lives at least until eleven years old in the wild. A natural predator of the deer is the grey wolf. Spotted hyenas also heavily preyed upon Persian fallow deer during the Late Pleistocene, before their disappearance from the Middle East.

Cervus (Dama) mesopotamicus was described by Victor Brooke in 1875 for a deer that was shot at the Karun river in Iran. Its taxonomic status is disputed. It has traditionally been considered to be a subspecies of the fallow deer from western Europe, Dama dama (as Dama dama mesopotamica), but is also treated as a distinct species by some authors. Persian fallow deer have an average body mass of around 70–140 kilograms (150–310 lb), considerably larger than European fallow deer. They reach a shoulder height of around 80–110 centimetres (31–43 in) and a length of 130–240 centimetres (51–94 in). Their palmate (flattened) antlers are somewhat less broad than those of European fallow deer. Other differences include the colour of the tail and having a wider upper end of the nasal bones than European fallow deer.

It is thought that the main reason for the decline of Persian fallow deer has been human hunting, beginning since the early Neolithic era. Interspecific competition with domestic livestock, human encroachment and habitat destruction for agriculture may also have contributed to their lowered numbers, as only around 10% of their former range still exists for habitation. Hunters are thought to have shot an animal in the 1990s, and feral packs of dogs have been known to kill deer in Israel. The current (and historical) top cause of mortality, as with many deer species worldwide, is collisions with trains or cars—which is also a considerable danger to human drivers, with some people being killed in traffic accidents involving especially large deer. As the native wolf population of Israel has recovered and recolonised areas of the country from the Golan Heights, wolf predation of fallow deer has increased steadily since the late 2010s, something authorities have tried to curb somewhat. Historically, when their numbers were higher, Anatolian leopards and Syrian brown bears may have been predators of Persian fallow deer.

Although 1,100 individuals as of 2015 means that the taxon no longer qualifies as 'endangered', the IUCN argues that only wild and mature animals in Israel count (300), and subtracts 50 from this number because it claims they may not be viably mature, and thus is still able to claim less than 250 animals exist, which then makes the taxon eligible for criterion D of the IUCN conservation status standards for 'endangered'. This is the opposite of the situation a few years earlier, when the IUCN claimed that because there was a possibility that the Israeli population may have somehow become hybridised with European fallow deer, only the population in Iran should count as 'Persian fallow deer', and was thereby able to claim the species met the requirements for criterion D and could be called 'endangered'. Research in 2012 showed there was no signs of admixture or hybridization in any of the deer in Europe, Iran or Israel. Numbers are increasing rapidly in all populations.

Cervus (Dama) mesopotamicus was described by Victor Brooke in 1875 for a deer that was shot at the Karun river in Iran. Its taxonomic status is disputed. It has traditionally been considered to be a subspecies of the fallow deer from western Europe, Dama dama (as Dama dama mesopotamica), but is also treated as a distinct species by some authors.