Rare deer return in conservation success story

It is the breeding season for milu deer here in China.

These animals are tucking into a feed at the Beijing Milu Ecological Research Center, a site that was once the Chinese emperor's hunting ground.

The centre monitors the deer for any signs of disease through a CCTV system, and also carries out research into deer diseases and behaviour.

The milu deer, also known as the Pere David deer, is native to China, but it died out here in 1900.

Now, the milu population is growing.

Over a six week period starting in April, the centre expects about 30 fawns to be born, to add to the 150 milu deer in the centre and about 5,500 in China as a whole.

Guo Geng, vice director of the Beijing Milu Ecological Research Center, says the milu are known in China as the "four-not-alike", because they resemble four animals in one.

"The milu are different to the deer that we are familiar with. How are they different? Their antlers grow backwards, not forwards, they don't have a forked shape. It is like a deer and not like a deer. Its face is long like a horse's, the face is like a horse's but it's not a horse; its hooves are wide like a cow's and it's not a cow; and its tail is as long as a donkey's, it has the longest tail among deer, so it is like a donkey and not like a donkey, which means the 'four-not-alike'," he says.

The story of the milu's survival is a remarkable one.

Milu deer lived in China's marshlands for hundreds of thousands of years.

They were among the animals brought from around China to roam on the emperor's hunting grounds during the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties.

But their numbers waned owing to hunting and the loss of their habitat as the human population grew.

Western interest began in 1865, when the French missionary Father Armand David - 'Pere David' - heard rumours of a buck that had the head of a horse, the hooves of a cow, the tail of a donkey and the antlers of a deer.

He stood on bricks to view the deer over the imperial hunting ground's high walls, and later obtained skin and bone samples from the grounds' guards.

Just a few decades later, the deer died out in China after flooding in their native habitat and slaughter in Beijing by soldiers from the eight nations brought in to suppress the Boxer Rebellion.

But by then, the milu had been introduced to Europe.

The 11th Duke of Bedford, an English politician and peer who was interested in zoology, realised the species was at risk of dying out and gathered 18 deer from European zoos on his estate in England to create what became the only surviving herd.

The final piece of the conservation puzzle fell into place in the 1980s, when Maria Boyd pushed forward an effort to reintroduce the species to China.

Boyd was a Slovak-born American zoologist who had been studying the milu deer and whose late husband was a friend of the duke's great-grandson.

In 1985, she led the first of a total of 37 deer donated by the duke back to China, where they were settled on the site of the former imperial hunting ground.

Boyd stayed in China, where she died of cancer last year at the age of 72.

Her surviving partner, Dominic Bauquis from France, explains Boyd's passion for the deer.

"Maria studied milu at Oxford University. She was always interested in deer, from early age she loved deer, and she fell in love with the story of milu, the saving of milu, with this link, this French-British-Chinese link, the French Pere David that saved them by bringing them overseas to Europe, the British Duke of Bedford collecting 18 of them, the last ones in the world, to save them, and then the Chinese government that had the foresight to say we want it back and can the Duke of Bedford help them."

Today, there are about 5,500 milu deer in China, with as many as 600 living in the wild in Hubei and Hunan provinces along the Yangtze River.

But the milu are not well known outside China - unlike the nation's famous mascot, the giant panda.

Bauquis says Boyd was disappointed that the milu lost out to the panda as the face of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

"She was so keen on the milu, the milu was the best, it was most unique, the most special so of course she always wanted the milu to be well featured and known and I think what upset her is that the milu story in China is known, but overseas it's not really known."

Boyd and Bauquis have co-written a book documenting the reintroduction of the deer, which Bauquis expects to be published in China this summer.

The book draws on five suitcases full of original documents, including the 9,290 British pound sterling invoice from Air France for the flight that transported the first batch of 22 deer.

The initial herd had been transported overland to Paris before being loaded aboard a Boeing 747 for the rest of the trip.

Bauquis says Boyd wouldn't leave China until she'd seen the completion of what she considered her life's mission.

Guo Geng says China has a responsibility to continue to preserve the milu for future generations.

"Our protecting of the milu is about protecting our living cultural heritage and natural heritage. It has been given to us by our ancestors. We have the responsibility to keep breeding them as Chinese living heritage. There is history, culture, poems, words, books. But if outside of books they become extinct, then the next generation will be extremely regretful."