GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Palestinians have always raised animals such as goats and camels, but one man has now taken up a new activity that is the first of its kind in the Gaza Strip — deer farming.

Majed Sharab, a resident of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza who owns Cardinal Garden, a shop for rare birds, as well as the new deer farm, told Al-Monitor, “I started raising deer four years ago because I wanted to have a farm and a zoo for people to visit and enjoy the many types of deer and several species of rare birds.”

He said, “I learned that someone in Khan Yunis owned a small female European deer and I contacted him immediately and offered to buy the deer for $2,300. I then placed it in a small garden I had next to my house where I kept my rare birds and animals.”

Sharab added, “But I had to look for a male deer to make them reproduce. Male deer are expensive and very rare in Gaza. I had to finally rent a male deer from a zoo in Shajaiya neighborhood in Gaza City to impregnate the female deer. I paid the zoo owner a large sum of money, and six months later the first baby deer was born. I repeated this process until the total number of deer finally reached six — four females and two males. The process cost me a lot, and I eventually had to buy a male deer from Abdul Rahman Zoo on al-Jalaa Street in Gaza City for $3,000 for reproduction. Now I have a male deer [permanently] for reproduction.”