Jonathan Cohen's photos with the keyword: Hula Valley Nature Reserve

With help of its friends worldwide, the Jewish National Fund has developed the Hula Valley Nature Reserve into an internationally acclaimed bird watching park. The Park also won international recognition in 2009, when BBC Wildlife declared it one of the most important observation and photography sites in the world. It was ranked ninth out of a selection of twenty outstanding sites all over the world chosen by 300 experts including scientists and photographers.

The crane is the king of the Hula. Every autumn more than 100,000 of them pass through the valley in the migration from Europe to Africa. A quarter of them winter there and fill it with their cheerful chatter.

Hula Lake is located in the center of the Hula Valley in the Galilee panhandle region in the far north of Israel. (Geologically speaking, the Hula Valley is part of the Syrian African rift valley.) In the 1930’s a plan took shape to drain the malaria-ridden swamps. This plan was carried out by the newly established State of Israel in the 1950’s. Drainage canals were dug and the outlet of the Jordan River was widened in the direction of the Kinneret Lake (also known as the Sea of Galilee). However, over the following years the peat earth that is typical of the Hula (that is organic earth rich in the remains of plants and animals) dried up, broke up, sank and even began to burn underground. Even worse, phosphates and nitrates in the earth began to flow into the Kinneret thereby polluting its waters. Therefore, in the 1990’s the Hula Valley was restored to its natural condition. The project included digging a network of canals that permitted the control of the water level as well as the height of the subterranean water table in the valley.