It has no elephants or lions, and no cars lined up at its gates. Nonetheless, it is a zoo. Tel Aviv University's Garden for Zoological Research in Ramat Aviv is an important center for the preservation of Israeli wildlife.

The research area is closed to visitors. Here the Yarkon Acanthobrama fish live in special aquariums - this fish is not particularly impressive, but it is extremely rare, found nowhere except in several Israeli coastal streams.

When the Yarkon dried up in the drought a few years ago, the Acanthobrama faced total extinction, so a breeding nucleus was established at the zoo. Recently, attempts have begun to reintroduce the fish into the streams.

	Advertisement

Among the Acanthobrama's neighbors are a pair of Lappet-faced Vultures who are among the last remaining in Israel. According to the zoo's academic director, Professor Arnon Lotem, the birds tried to nest but failed to breed.

The zoo also has a female White-tailed Eagle, who is the mother of many of the eagles reintroduced into nature in recent years to prevent the species' extinction.

University zoos are not found routinely anywhere in the world. As is often the case in Israel, this, too, was the initiative of a small number of individuals, particularly one of the university's founders, the late zoologist Heinrich Mendelssohn.

He saw to it that the zoo that operated even before the university's founding would accompany it, move to its present home in Ramat Aviv and receive the official name "Garden for Zoological Research."

Not open to the public

The zoo is not open to the public per se, but it annually hosts thousands of school children, and various professional groups hold seminars there.

All tours are guided and families can visit only by prior appointment.

The staff prepares the food for the animals and sells some of it to other zoos as a source of additional income.

"The main objectives of the garden are research, teaching and promoting conservation," Lotem says. "The animals have no names because the goal is primarily to observe them and not to bond with them - as caretakers do in ordinary zoos."

At the heart of the garden is a small green park, a congregation point for passing birds and for some of the zoo's animals. "This area allows for observing various types of animal conduct, so we placed cameras that broadcast directly to the Internet," Lotem explains. "There are also animals such as peacocks, which are simply a good model for understanding behavior."

In one corner of the park there is a group of endangered Hawaiian Nene geese. Several breeding nuclei were dispersed throughout the world, including Tel Aviv. One of the males in the group is taking no chances and exhibits intimidating behavior toward human visitors who approach the gaggle.

The zoo also attracts visiting animals from the area. Mongooses drop by regularly and recently six vipers showed up. Permanent tenants include such denizens of urban nature as the fruit bat, which is revealed upon close observation to be friendly and nothing like its superstitious reputation.