That’s one bird saved. As an ornithologist in charge of the only bird sanctuary within 100 miles of Eilat, Israel’s burgeoning resort town on the shores of the Red Sea, Yosef has the job of worrying about the survival of more than 1 billion birds from Europe and Asia. That’s how many pass through Israel each year on their 6,000-mile round trip to sub-Saharan Africa. For thousands of years, birds have been able to survive this exhausting trek in no small part because a salt marsh at the southern tip of present-day Israel provided a break in the vast desert, a place to rest and grab a bite. As developers covered over the marsh to build Eilat, the birds started dying. In the early 1990s Yosef would see them in the thousands, bedraggled and wandering in search of food. Now, thanks to him and others, the birds are again thriving. But only as long as Yosef can keep the developers at bay.
In 1993 Yosef’s organization, the International Birding and Resource Center, acquired a garbage dump, buried the waste deep underground and covered the area with clean dirt donated from local developers. Then they irrigated the land with partially treated sewage water, reviving the vegetation that birds like. “All of what is now Eilat used to be a rest area for birds,” says Yosef. “We’re just a small sanctuary, just 5 percent of what the natural area used to be.” Still, for the birds that pass through Eilat, the 160-acre patch of shrubbery and ponds is a much-needed haven.
Even in the best of times, the birds’ journey is harrowingly difficult. The sanctuary is sandwiched between the vast Syrian and Arabian deserts to the north and the Sahara and Sahel to the south. For birds making the trip south, it is the last way station before 1,000 miles of arid Sahara, usually crossed in one continuous flight. Going north, the next available stop is hundreds of miles away. Two years ago, more than 1,000 storks flying to Africa through heavy winds collapsed in Eilat from exhaustion. Yosef, his staff and volunteers gathered up many of the birds and fed them fish by hand. Hundreds died, but several weeks later, 800 storks were strong enough to resume their migration.
Even though the sanctuary is thriving, Israel’s booming tourism industry still threatens the migrating birds. New hotels, shopping malls and other tourist attractions are being built at a blistering pace. The bird center, located north of Eilat’s teeming shoreline, has been targeted for a racetrack and a disco. Yosef has thwarted these initiatives with the help of some green-minded officials, but he is convinced the developers will not stop trying.
Yosef has also offended Israelis who think his brand of conservationism isn’t entirely Zionist. Ironically, it was a devotion to Zionism that motivated Yosef to leave his native India for Israel at 16. Now 45, he believes that a main Zionist goal, to make the desert bloom, has been a disaster for nature. Insecticides used by farmers are contaminating the plants and insects that the birds feed on.
Yosef is convinced developers have resorted to violence. A few months ago, a deadly snake that had been wrapped into a bird net nearly bit one of Yosef’s interns. “It had to be deliberate,” Yosef says. “The snake was pressed into the net five feet off the ground.” Over the past few years, his tires have been slashed, his windshield smashed, a research station burned to the ground, the family dog hanged and shadowy voices on the phone have warned him to leave town “or else.” Yosef is convinced the developers are behind these acts. Gabi Kadosh, Eilat’s mayor, believes it is mere vandalism. “Maybe it’s more convenient for him to say these were threats from developers,” says Kadosh. “It furthers his cause.” It was Kadosh, though, who presided over seven years of unbridled expansion, including the construction of several Las Vegas-style megahotels.
For the time being, Kadosh says he favors the sanctuary, and tourism officials are promoting birds in their brochures. Yosef derives little comfort from this support. “If we get a prime minister who wants to turn this place into a Bloomingdale’s, we’ll have a problem.” So will the birds.
