China To Return More David's Deer To the Wild

Wildlife protection organization in China has worked to return to the wild more David's Deer in the world's largest David's Deer nature reserve in east China's Jiangsu Province.

There are more than 2,000 extant David's Deer in the world. Wild species of the rare animal have been extinct for over a century. Experts hope that the deer will breed once it is returned to its wild habitat. China today boasts 408 David's Deer in the Jiangsu reserve. In November 1998, the Nature Reserve returned eight David's Deer to the wild and one of the females successfully delivered a fawn in March 23, last year.

David's Deer have been described as having the antlers of a deer, the head of a horse and the body of a cow. The species was named after Pere David, a French Catholic priest and naturalist who first recorded the existence of the deer in China back in 1865. Last year, the Nature reserve attracted approximately one million visitors both from China and overseas and thus become one of the country's 15 best-selected and most popular tourist destinations in China because of their ecological achievements.


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