Government and Policy

First prize launched for milu protection across China

By Liang Chao (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-07-23 22:32

China has launched its first-ever Milu or Pere David's deer conservation award to reward those making outstanding contributions toward protection, scientific research or restoration of the rare species.

The prize is co-sponsored by Dafeng National Milu Nature Reserve in Jiangsu province, home to a total of 1,618 Milu, and Dafeng Research Society of Wild Milu. Zang Chunlin, secretary-general of China Wildlife Conservation Association (CWCA), announced the new award at a news conference this week in Beijing.

It will be presented once every two years, with the first batch of winners to be picked within the year from those engaging in protecting Milu across the country, according to Ding Yuhua, vice-director of the Dafeng reserve.

"We are going to give each winner a reward ranging from 1,000 yuan ($147) to 5,000 yuan for the outstanding efforts they have put into protecting the unique species of deer," he said.

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The deer, once a species unique to China, were extinct in China at the turn of 20th century. In 1985, 22 of them were returned from Britain, where they had been kept at Woburn Abbey by the dukes of Bedford.

In 1986, another 39 Milu returned and began to live at Defeng Nature Reserve, East China's Jiangsu province, where its population has grown to 1,618, making it the largest in the world today.

Moreover, the reserve has set up the largest Milu gene pool the world has ever had, according to Ding Yuhua, the veterinarian who has devoted his life to working with the animals for 25 years and has become China's "Father of Milu."

After 25 years of hard work, he and his team have succeeded in restoring the world's largest wild population of Milu in the Dafeng reserve, where 53 Milu have been set free into the wild in four batches in 1998, 2002, 2003 and 2006 respectively.

By the end of the milu's birth period this year, the number of the species living in the wild grew from the 53 to 156, according to the latest reports released in Beijing on Monday.

The existing number of Milu living in the country's reserves has grown to over 2,000 or about 40 per cent of the world's total, according to sources with CWCA, which they said has made China the largest habitat of the species.

In 2003, the animal species was removed from the red list of endangered animals published by the World Conservation Union.

However, it is still under the State top-level protection in China. 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.

Pere David's deer were first mentioned in Chinese books more than 2,000 years ago. The wetland deer species bears the odd nickname of "sibuxiang," or "none of the four alike" for its unique features in appearance -- a horse's face, a donkey's tail, cow-like hooves and a stag's antlers.

The Milu was once an indigenous species living in the central swamps of China. In 1900, due to wars, floods and famine, the Milu became extinct completely in China. It was not until 1985 that the Milu finally got a chance to return to China, its homeland, after decades abroad.

Today, most of them are living in Dafeng of Jiangsu province, Nanhaizi Park in Beijing, Shishou of Central China's Hubei province and Dongting Lake, in the neighboring Hunan province.