|
When Israeli scientist Menachem Goren stepped in, there were only 150 Yarkon bleak fish (Acanthobrama Telavivensis) left alive in Israel. The small, silver fish, once indigenous to Israel’s streams and rivers, had gradually been killed off by a lethal combination of factory runoffs, pollution and drought. It looked like the end of the line for this fish species.
Now, thanks to Goren, of Tel Aviv University’s Department of Zoology, Yarkon bleak fish numbers have not only risen, but the fish has also been successfully reintroduced into nature – once of the first species ever to find itself off the ‘extinct in the wild’ list. |
|
|
“The Yarkon bleak used to be found in most of Israel’s coastal river system, but by the latter half of the 20th century the fish had disappeared from every waterway except the Yarkon River and Tut Stream,” Goren explains, adding that pumping for irrigation purposes had turned many rivers into mere trickles.
Then came a period of extended drought, which culminated in 1999.
“By then, only three small isolated populations survived and the species was on the brink of extinction,” he tells ISRAEL21c. |
|