The Yotvata Hai-Bar Nature Reserve is a 3,000-acre breeding and reacclimation center administered by the Israel Nature Reserves & National Parks Authority, situated in the Southern Arava near Yotvata. The Yotvata Hai-Bar is the desert counterpart of the Carmel Hai-Bar Nature Reserve which operates in the country’s Northern Mediterranean forest.
Endangered and locally extinct animals mentioned in the Bible are bred here for possible reintroduction to the Negev desert. The Asian wild ass has already been reintroduced in the Makhtesh Ramon area of the wild. In addition the park has some rare desert animals, which are not native to Israel, like the scimitar oryx and the North African ostrich.
There are no historic sites within the boundaries of the reserve, but nearby, to the north, where En Yotvata (which does not currently flow aboveground) rises, are the remains of ancient settlements – an Iron Age fortress and the ruins of a Roman bathhouse. There is also a British mounted police station. When it was built the spring was called En Radian. The name Yotvata is taken from the book of Deuteronomy, Chapter 10, which says that Yotvata was one of the stations of the Children of Israel in the desert – “Yotvata is land of brooks of water”.
