ISRAEL: Duck! It’s hunting season

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Who would have known it, but hunting season opened in Israel this week.

Many species of animals are protected by law in Israel, which passed a rather detailed wildlife-protection law as a 7-year-old state in 1955. As reality changes, so does the list, which today protects deer, hares, partridges and the country’s largest rodent: the hystrix, a crested porcupine. The last two joined the fortunate list only recently.

Some traditions die hard. The porcupines’ meat is believed by some Arabs and Druze to have healing properties, and the animals remain in high demand; one will fetch as much as $165. They continue to be hunted illegally, mostly in northern Israel, where conservationists fear the once-common prickly residents may disappear altogether.

A small victory was noted last year when legislation doubled the fine for illegal hunting to the equivalent of $38,000.

Hunters must obtain a license and renew it annually, present their equipment for inspection, report their game and follow strict restrictions during the five-month season. They must keep at least 1,640 feet from residential communities and come no closer than 328 feet from a lone house or a cemetery; nature reserves and national parks are entirely off-limits.

There is a long list of prohibited hunting methods that includes poisoning, trapping, netting, using dogs or bludgeoning (yuck!). Only licensed hunting rifles may be used -- no private and certainly no military-issued weapons (and no bows and arrows either, states the list).

Following regulations will be of little comfort to turtledoves, quail and some waterfowl that constitute the only legal game (aside from wild boars -- regulated attempts are made to thin the booming population that menaces agriculture by munching everything from produce to pipes, and poses a potential menace to residents too).

But here’s one duck that doesn’t have to duck: Oxyura leucocephala (oh, OK. ‘white-headed duck’). About 800 of these migratory waterbirds spend their winters in Israel, constituting nearly 10% of the world’s population of this species endangered through loss of habitat to development. The white-headed duck got many water reserves and winter ponds along Israel’s coastal plain out of the cross hairs and onto the protected-areas list, starting last season.

-- Batsheva Sobelman in Jerusalem

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