Species Fact Profile: Pere David's Deer (Elaphurus davidianus)

                                                                Pere David's Deer (Milu)

                                                       Elaphurus davidianus (A. Milne-Edwards, 1866)

Range: Historical range northeastern and east0central China.  Species became extinct in the wild around 200 AD, but survived in the Imperial Hunting Park.  Today found in two national parks – Beijing Milu Park and Dafeng Milu Natural Reserve

Habitat:  (Assumed natural habitat) Lowland wetlands and marshlands

Diet: Grasses, Aquatic Plants

Social Grouping: Males form harems of females

Reproduction:  Breeding season is in June, at which time males join the females.  Estrus cycle 20 days, may have multiple cycles per breeding season.  Gestation is 280 days, with 1 (sometimes 2) fawns born in April or May (possible embryonic diapause), about 11 kilograms at birth.   Weaned at 10-11 months old.   Females are sexually mature at 2-2.5 years old (but can be as young as 14 months), males about 1 year later.

Lifespan: 20 Years

      Conservation Status: IUCN Extinct in the Wild

• Length 183-216 centimeters, with an additional 22-35 centimeters tail (pretty long for a deer).  About 1.2 meters tall at the shoulder.  Males weigh 215 kilograms, females 160.  Males differ from females in having shaggier throats.  The tail is relatively long.  The skin between the hooves is naked.  Hooves make a clicking noise with the animal in walking
• Pelage is red to red-brown in the summer, with a black medial stripe on the shoulders, turning to a gray-brown with dark flanks and throat in the winter.  Fawns have white spotting
• Males have antlers that shed annual in December or January, with new ones starting to grow in immediately after shedding, reaching full size in May.  Antlers are 55-80 centimeters long on the curve, fork close to the skin.  The long prong is very straight, the front prong branches off with the prongs facing backwards
• Males compete for access to females during rut, both through displays and actual combat (biting, using antlers, rearing onto hind legs and boxing).  Males maintain harems of females, but often have trouble holding them for too long because they do not eat while defending a harem and as such lose body condition quickly (once leaving the harem, they resume feeding and often put weight back on quickly
• Very fond of water, swim well and often wade up to their shoulders.
• Unknown what the natural predators were due to centuries of semi-captivity before being reintroduced, but presumably were tigers and leopards
• Only member of the genus Elaphurus (but some taxonomists feel it should be part of Cervus).  Genus name comes from the Greek for “Deer-tail,” species name honors Armand David
• Also called milu.  Chinese nickname for the species was sze pu shiang, or “the four unlikes,” as the animal supposedly had the neck of a camel, the tail of a donkey, the antlers of a deer, and the hooves of a cow (sometimes different animals or body parts are mentioned, like the head of a horse).  In legend, the animal helped the sage Jiang Ziya found the Zhou Dynasty
• Species came to the attention of the west in 1865 when Père Armand David, a French missionary, peered over the wall of the Imperial Hunting Park near Peking and saw the deer, which at this point were likely already extinct in the wild.  After securing skin and bones for science, a dozen individuals from the herd were later sent to Europe (History detailed here)
• In 1894, a flood destroyed the Imperial Hunting Park, killing many of the deer; those that survived were eaten during the Boxer Rebellion of 1900.  Species was extinct in China by 1939
• The surviving deer in Europe (18 in total, 11 of which bred) were gathered by the 11^th Duke of Bedford, Herbrand Russell, and allowed to breed in safety on his estate at Woburn Abbey.
• · Zoo-bred deer were sent back to China in 1956.  In 1985, a herd was reintroduced to Beijing Milu Park, with another herd being formed in 1986 at Dafeng Milu Park, bulk of animals coming from Whipsnade Wild Animal Park (Zoological Society of London).  By the end of the millennium, there were hundreds in the wild in China, numbering nearly 3000 by 2020.
• Has been introduced to New Zealand for farming and hunting, sometimes hybridized with red deer, producing fertile offspring