Animals at a French Zoo - Persian deer - deer gazing out through bars. Part of Box 209 Boswell collection - Old and New French Zoo. Slide 15. Persian fallow deer are physically larger than fallow deer and are nearly extinct today. They were formerly found from Mesopotamia and Egypt to the Cyrenaica and Cyprus. Their preferred habitat is open woodland. Since 1996 they have been gradually and successfully reintroduced from a breeding centre in the Carmel, into the wild in northern Israel, and more than 650 of them now live in the Galilee, Mount Carmel areas and the Brook of Sorek.