A new museum in Israel strives to spread knowledge about the wildlife that once existed in the land and is discussed in the Bible. Orit Arfa writes:
One of the goals of the new museum is to bring Jews back in touch with biblical wildlife, a subject ignored by the people of Israel as they were exiled from the land. . . . But the land of Israel, located at the nexus of Europe, Asia, and Africa, actually occupies a very special place from a zoogeographic perspective. . . .
“It’s our connection to historical Israel,” [says the museum’s director, Natan] Slifkin. “Every nation, every culture, has animals that are part of that culture—animals that appear in its cultural texts and traditions. . . . For the native Americans, it’s the buffalo and wolf. For the aboriginals of Australia, it’s the kangaroo and emu. . . . The people of Israel have lions, leopards, bears, vultures, crocodiles, and hippos. These are not animals from the shtetls of Europe.”
But the animals that figure prominently in the Torah have largely been exiled or killed off, mostly due to deforestation and Roman-era hunting. The last bear in Israel was seen in Nahal Ammud, in the Galilee region, in 1917. Crocodiles lived in a place called Nahal Taninim (Crocodile Creek) until the early 20th century. Today, exactly four leopards walk the Negev desert.
Read more on JNS: http://www.jns.org/latest-articles/2015/2/27/hippos-in-israel-new-museum-re-animates-forgotten-biblical-wildlife