Re- introduction of roe deer at Ajloun Nature Reserve, Jordan

Summary

Roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), extinct in Jordan since roughly the early 19th century from hunting and deforestation, was reintroduced to Ajloun Nature Reserve by the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature after an 18-year captive breeding program that began with 14 animals moved to a small enclosure at Zubiya Nature Reserve in 2000, only nine of which (5 males, 4 females) survived the transfer to a breeding enclosure at Ajloun, a reserve with oak-dominated Mediterranean shrub habitat closely resembling the source site. The captive herd was hand-fed daily water and feed rations while RSCN conducted flora and fauna surveys to build a site management plan, before 26 deer (11 males, 15 females) were finally released into the wider reserve on 19 January 2006. Post-release monitoring combined GPS tracking, dawn and dusk visual counts at water sources and vantage points, spoor surveys for droppings and footprints, and interviews with local landowners and rangers to build a distribution map and identify threats. Ongoing management includes joint ranger and environmental police patrols and public outreach programs aimed at reducing the pressures that originally drove the species extinct. Major difficulties included a lack of official breeding-program records on mortality and reproduction, no defined model for how many years or animals are needed to establish viability, no study of the herd's ecological effects on the reserve, and local complaints stemming from insufficient socio-economic engagement. The project rates itself Successful, having established a free-living population under sustained long-term management, though it flags continued need for socio-economic programs and secure funding.