Yotvata Hai-Bar Nature Reserve

Yotvata Hai-Bar is a desert wildlife reserve in the southern Arava, created to protect and reintroduce species that once lived in the region.

A visit offers a chance to see animals such as Arabian oryx, Persian fallow deer, ostriches, and desert predators in wide open surroundings. It works well as part of a journey between Eilat, Timna Park, and the wider Negev.

The reserve tells a hopeful but complicated story: animals that disappeared from the desert because of hunting, habitat loss, and human pressure are being given a chance to return. It asks visitors to see the Arava not only as a landscape to cross, but as an ecosystem that can be repaired and protected.