Mountain Gazelle

The mountain gazelle (Gazella gazella), also called the true gazelle or the Palestine mountain gazelle, is a species of gazelle that is widely but unevenly distributed.

The baby will not typically accompany its mother to graze for several weeks, relying solely on camouflage and lying perfectly still to avoid detection by carnivores.

The mountain gazelle is a crepuscular species; they are awake most of the day and sleep most of the night, but generally are always active in the early morning hours and around sunset.

In the early 20th Century, unregulated hunting with firearms decimated the mountain gazelle population.

Later, the greater stability of food and water from agriculture and the avoidance of humans and livestock by gazelles may have similarly reduced population size and intraspecific competition for the gazelles and allowed individual animals to grow larger on average.

In the wild, mountain gazelle rarely survive past the age of eight, but can live up to 15 years in captivity with adequate care.

Small, isolated populations are also found in parts of Jordan, the Gaza Strip, and may be present (though unlikely) in Lebanon, Egypt, and Syria outside of the Golan Heights.

Currently they are most abundant in Israel, and are also present in the West Bank in Palestine, the Golan Heights, and Turkey.