By Sheldon Greaves

Note: an earlier version of this post appeared on the Citizen Scientists’ League blog in August of 2013.

We’ve been preparing to move to a new apartment, which in our case means packing a lot of books. This is dangerous from a time management point of view because I have this tendency to actually pay attention to what books I’m packing, and sometimes I can’t help stopping to read. One volume that caught my eye during this process is Robert Twigger’s The Extinction Club, which is a round-about tale of how a British Duke helped save an extremely rare species of deer from China from extinction. Here is a précis of at least part of the story from the book:

For one thousand years, the Milo (Elaphurus davidianus), an exotic species of deer with the neck of a camel, the horns of a stag, the feet of a cow, and the tail of a donkey, existed only in the Chinese emperor’s private park in Beijing. But in the second half of the nineteenth century a Basque missionary, Pére David, became the first Westerner ever to see a Milu. Transfixed by the strange beast, he risked his life to obtain a specimen, then embalmed it and sent it to Paris in a diplomatic bag. The preserved remains caused quite a stir across Europe, and zoologists clamored to get hold of a live animal. Within a very short time, every major nation in Europe possessed a Milu. But most failed to thrive and died quickly in their new surroundings, and due to war—most notably the Boxer Rebellion—they became extinct in their native habitat as well.

The emperor’s deer were eaten by American and Japanese troops who had come to suppress the Boxers. Luckily (and illegally) some animals were shipped to several zoos in Europe. One place where the Milu (also known as Pére David’s deer) could survive was Bedfordshire, England thanks to the careful and devoted nurturing of the 11^th Duke of Bedford and his descendants, who maintained a herd at Woburn Abbey.  He founded his herd with eighteen animals; the few surviving deer he could obtain from other European institutions. For over a century, the herd at Woburn was the only self-sustaining colony of Milu. Gradually, other zoos and preserves were able to keep Milu as well.

In 1986, animals from the Woburn herd were reintroduced to China where they were kept in the Nanyuang Royal Hunting Garden in the southern suburbs of Beijing, creating the Beijing Milu Park. From the 20 animals originally reintroduced, the population had grown to about 2,000 by 2005. Other reintroductions have proven successful, and the species does not appear to be suffering from the effects of a genetic bottleneck. While all the Chinese populations are “semiwild” in parks and preserves, the outlook is good for introducing free-ranging herds in the future.

One downside of this is that some of these preserves including, ironically, the one at Woburn Abbey, sometimes allow hunters to take trophies via so-called “canned hunting” for those willing to pay a steep price to shoot animals so tame, in the words of one commentator, “you could probably walk up to them and kill them with a pocket knife.” Apparently the 15^th Duke of Bedford is of a different mind than the 11^th and 12^th who saved this remarkable species. But in spite of such despicable “hunters,” it is good to see a species that was so close to winking out forever making a comeback.