Yeruham Park

The story

Yeruham Park is a pine forest planted by the Jewish National Fund around the upper channel of Nahal Revivim, next to Yeruham. The forest extends over some five hundred dunams, fruit trees irrigated with reclaimed water are set into it, and it has picnic corners. At its center lies Lake Yeruham. In the nineteen-eighties an attempt was made to develop tourism here, and within it a small pond was separated from the lake which lasts all year round. With the opening of the sewage purification plant of Yeruham in 2006 the quality of the water in the two bodies of water improved. The park and the lake are a stopping station for migrating birds, and some of them stay in the lake for the season. In 2009 the "Duchifat" center for ornithology and ecology was set up in the area of the park, one of four national ringing stations — the other three in Jerusalem, in the Hula and in Eilat. In 2014 and in 2015 the center held, together with Ben-Gurion University and further organizations, a BioBlitz event in which as many species as possible are identified; this was the first time the event was held in Israel, and in the 2014 edition five hundred and thirty-one species were identified.

• Desert
• Water and wells
• Yeruham