Re-introduction of Père David’s deer “Milu” to Beijing, Dafeng & Shishou, China

Summary

Père David's deer, or Milu (Elaphurus davidianus), Extinct in the Wild in China and preserved only through a captive herd assembled at England's Woburn Abbey from the last 18 animals worldwide in the late 19th century, was reintroduced to China starting in 1985 when the Duke of Bedford donated 36 Milu to found the newly established Beijing Milu Park on the historic site of the Qing Dynasty's Nanyuan Royal Hunting Garden, from which the species had originally escaped and gone extinct after 19th-century flood and wartime destruction. A second group of 39 Milu from five British zoos was released in 1986 into the newly created Dafeng Milu Natural Reserve on Jiangsu's coastal marshes, while 91 more were translocated from Beijing to Tianezhou, Shishou, Hubei Province in 1993 and 1995, founding the Shishou Milu Reserve; a major 1998 Yangtze flood scattered some Shishou deer into permanent wild herds elsewhere. Deliberate wild releases in Dafeng have continued since 1997. By 2013, the Beijing population had grown from 39 to 200 (with over 300 relocated to more than 50 other reserves and parks), and the Dafeng population had reached nearly 2,000, supported by veterinary monitoring, artificial grassland and wetland restoration to offset overgrazing, and international research workshops. Difficulties included populations quickly outgrowing park capacities, a shortage of further release sites, occasional disease outbreaks, crop-damage conflicts with local communities, and persistently low genetic diversity from the species' historical bottleneck. The project rates itself highly successful, crediting Milu's status as a national conservation flagship and a dedicated multi-institutional consulting body.