Home, Sweet Home
On March 3, 2016, World Wildlife Day, 16 Pere David’s deer were shipped from Dafeng Pere David’s 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 People’s 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 David’s deer has a horse’s face, a deer’s horns, a donkey’s tail, and a cow’s 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 David's 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.
In 1985, thanks to the unremitting efforts of the WWF, Pere David’s deer returned to Nanhaizi, the former Royal Hunting Ground in Beijing. By 2015, the animal’s global population passed 6,000. In addition to over 219 breeding centers in 25 countries, 5,000 are in China – 49 times growth over 30 years and 83 percent of the world’s total.
This year, 16 Pere David’s deer were released into the wild wearing satellite trackers with radio positioning devices that allow researchers to study their lives, routines, and environmental demands. Like many animals, Pere David’s deer inspires riddles: “Can it survive the dramatic changes to its living environment?” “Can they adapt to the great wilderness?” Satellite trackers will send back important data enabling protection and administration to be performed in a more scientific way.
Dongting Lake, a vast expanse of water that ebbs and flows with the change of seasons, is a favorable habitat for Pere David’s deer, a species that swims, gallops, and jumps through wetlands. Information bounced off satellites will shed light on many issues bothering conservationists.
“It is extremely important for us to employ high-tech means to study and protect every habitat for wild animals,” opines Yi Qing, media officer of the WWF. “In the past, zoologists tracked animals on foot and observed from fixed points, extremely difficult methods which prove impossible for species such as migratory birds. Today, however, the wide application of satellite tracking is providing valuable information on large wild animals such as giant pandas, snow leopards, elephants, white-crowned cranes, and lesser white-fronted geese, no matter how inaccessible their living environments are.”
In the future, more migratory birds as well as aquatic and land species will be equipped with satellite trackers and become “messengers” facilitating communication between man and wildlife.