99. Nubian Ibex, Capra nubiana F. Cuvier, 1825

(IUCN Red List: VU)

Distribution: Confined to Golan Heights (Fig. 108).

Previous records: Labter Hills (Jabal Al-Abtar) southwest of Palmyra (Maydon 1930), a specimen obtained from east of Al-Qaryatein in the collection of the British Museum of Natural History (Harrison 1968). It was also reported in the Jabal ash-Sharqi mountain ranges north of Damascus which run southwest-northeast, as far as Halab (Aleppo) and to just south of Tadmur (Palmyra), presumably in the Jabal al Khunayzir by Shackleton (1997) based on (Harrison 1968). However, the latter didn’t mention these sites where the species records remain unsubstainational.

Remarks: Nubian Ibex was considered as a subspecies of the ( Capra ibex nubiana Linnaeus, 1758) but is now considered as a distinct species (Grubb 2005). The species might be extinct in Syria by the end of the 1950s; however, it was reintroduced into the Golan Heights in 1970 (Shackleton 1997).