The plight of the Endangered mountain gazelle Gazella gazella YORAM YOM-TOV,AMI R B A LABAN,EZRA HADAD,GILAD WEI L and URI ROL L
Abstract The Endangered mountain gazelle Gazella gazella was once widespread throughout the Levant. Over the past 100 years its population fluctuated greatly as a result of vari- ous anthropogenic threats and disturbances. We review the dynamics of the mountain gazelle throughout this period in Israel, its last remaining stronghold, with c. 5,000 indivi- duals. During the 20th century Israel’s human population increased steadily at an annual rate of 2%; the population density is currently 430 persons per km2 and is forecast to increase further. This presents an array of threats to the mountain gazelle, including habitat change, fragmentation and isolation by roads, railways and fences, poaching, road kills and predation by increasing populations of natural predators and feral dogs, sustained partly by anthropogenic foodwaste. These threats may act in synergy to amplify their effects.Wepresent an overviewof how these factors acted in the past and are currently threatening the survival of this species. We also review the policy and management actions, both implemented and still required, to ensure the persis- tence of the mountain gazelle. In addition, we analyse con- nectivity in the landscape, highlighting highly fragmented gazelle populations, and suggest potential interventions. The mountain gazelle exemplifies an ungulate with both great vulnerability to human pressures and a large breeding potential. As more regions, in Israel and elsewhere, are con- verted to human dominated landscapes, pressures on wild- life are increasing, and lessons from the mountain gazelle could prove valuable.
Keywords Anthropocene, Gazella gazella, hunting, Israel, land use, mountain gazelle, poaching, threat
Supplementary material for this article is available at
doi.org/10.1017/S003060531900108X
Introduction
cies, hunting and poaching (Di Marco et al., 2014). There have been many attempts to alleviate this situation through conservation actions (Moehlman et al., 2016). The mountain gazelle Gazella gazella in the southern Levant exemplifies the plight of threatened ungulates globally, with increasingly altered landscapes and complex interactions with people (Game et al., 2014). If present trends persist, the mountain gazelle’s survival may be in jeopardy. Here we review the main human-driven changes in the
W
Israeli mountain gazelle population during the past 100 years (Fig. 1). We focus on current drivers of threats and re- view policy and management practices employed for the species’ conservation. To ensure the species’ persistence, we recommend measures to alleviate the major threats.
The local setting YORAM YOM-TOV (Corresponding author,
orcid.org/0000-0002-9234-9431)
School of Zoology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 6997801, Israel E-mail
yomtov@tauex.tau.ac.il
AMIR BALABAN Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, Tel Aviv, Israel EZRA HADAD Bet Shemesh, Israel GILADWEIL Department of Geography, the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel
URI ROLL (
orcid.org/0000-0002-5418-1164) Mitrani Department of Desert Ecology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Midreshet Ben-Gurion, Israel
Received 14 February 2019. Revision requested 17 April 2019. Accepted 30 August 2019. First published online 10 June 2020.
The spatial scope of this work includes the State of Israel, the Golan Heights and the Palestinian Authority in theWest Bank, an area of c. 28,000 km2 (Fig. 2). Most surveys and monitoring of mountain gazelles included in this review were carried out throughout this area, albeit at different in- tensities. For convenience we refer to this entire region as Israel (and refrain from making any political statement in so doing). The State of Israel per se comprises a land area of c. 22,000 km2. Its human population has increased from c. 0.8 million in 1949 to 8.7 million in 2017 (Statistical Abstract of Israel, 2017). The population density is c. 430 persons per km2, with c. 1,300 human settlements (Sorek & Perevolotsky, 2016). Since 1996 Israel’s human population has increased at an average annual rate of 2%, the highest amongst OECD countries (Statistical Abstract of Israel, 2017). In the Mediterranean region, with an annual rainfall of 250–1,000mm(Fig. 2), where most people reside, the maximum distance between human settlements is 5 km (Sorek & Perevolotsky, 2016). The human population increase has led to a concurrent
increase in the use of land for agriculture and infrastruc- ture. In 2020,c. 15,000 km2 of Israel’s land area is natural, and agriculture occupies c. 4,000 km2. Overall, 10.7%of Israel’s area is urbanized (2,360 km2), 12 times higher than the global average (Sorek & Perevolotsky, 2016). In the Mediterranean region, 18% of the area is urbanized (Sorek & Perevolotsky, 2016). Motor vehicle density on the roads
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Oryx, 2021, 55(5), 771–778 © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S003060531900108X
ild ungulate populations are declining as a result of habitat destruction and fragmentation, invasive spe-
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164
