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Clean / Kosher Animals like deer, elk, giraffe?

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Rabbi Ari Shvat

Nisan 3, 5779
Question
Are bison, deer, wild goat, elk and giraffe kosher? Maybe they’re not eaten because they are not domestic animals, these are out in the wild, so they cannot be killed without stressing the animals nor killed in a kosher manner. My question is : are these animals kosher ? Thank You , Bill
Answer
You are correct that these animals are usually not raised domestically, and accordingly must be trapped very gently. I know of one farm in Israel where they raise bison domestically to slaughter in the kosher manner, and one farm which sometimes raises deer and some others of these usually wild animals and fowl, as well as a farm in America which apparently raises elk to be eaten kosher. We don’t eat giraffes because we don’t have an ancient tradition whether its identity is 100% definite among the names of the kosher animals on the Torah’s list (some identify it as the Biblical “tachash”, and some as the Biblical “zemer” but these aren’t certain).
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