Home, Sweet Home

by+Zi+Ran

On March 3， 2016， World Wild- life Day， 16 Pere Davids deer were shipped from Dafeng Pere Davids Deer National Reserve in Jiangsu Province to Dongting Lake in Hunan Province， and set free in the boundless reed swamp， where they disappeared in the wilderness.

The campaign was jointly sponsored by the State Forestry Administration and Hunan Provincial Peoples Government and carried out by the Forestry Department of Hunan Province， China Green Foundation （CGF）， and World Wide Fund for Nature （WWF）， kicking off the Wildlife Footprint， a 100-species satellite tracking program launched by the CGF and WWF.

Only found in China， the Pere Davids deer has a horses face， a deers horns， a donkeys tail， and a cows hooves. In remote antiquity， it was considered an auspicious animal， attractive to hunters， and a worship totem and offering in sacrificial ceremonies. It is considered an icon of booming vitality because its antlers fall off and grow again annually.

Fossil records show that Pere Davids deer emerged over 2 million years ago and reached its heyday some 10，000 to 3，000 years ago. Archaeologists found that during this period of time， the quantity of their bones unearthed rivals that of domestic pigs. The species declined suddenly after the Shang and Zhou dynasties some 3，000 years back and teetered on extinction during the early Qing Dynasty （1644-1911）. None in captivity survived the Eight-Power Allied Forces invasion of Beijing in 1900.

1865

In the autumn of 1865， French naturalist and missionary Pere David incidentally discovered the strange animal in Nanhaizi， a royal hunting ground， as he observed animals on the southern outskirts of Beijing. He immediately realized that the strange deer might have never before been documented. He paid 20 taels of fine silver to the guard of the hunting ground to buy a skull and two pieces of fur from the animal and shipped them back to France.

1866

In 1866， David presented the sample to the Museum of Natural History in Paris， and the animal was catalogued as a new species， a unique family of Cervidae. Named Elaphurus davidanus in Latin， it has since been known as Pere Davids Deer due to its discoverer. Beginning in 1866， envoys and priests from Britain， France， Germany， and Belgium visiting China shipped dozens of the species from Nanhaizi to European zoos through various means.