Once extinct in the wild in China, now "reborn" in their homeland! What have they experienced?

In a wetland at Beijing's Nanhaizi Milu Park, a group of elks are enjoying a leisurely time. They are steady and plump, some are eating grass, some are playing in the water, and some are resting on the grass. Starting from the Grain in Ear season, elks will enter the courtship period. During this period every year, a "Deer King Competition" will be staged in the elk park, which has become a major event in the Nanhaizi Milu Park.

The elk, also known as the "four-legged beast", has deer antlers, horse head, donkey tail and cow hooves, and is good at swimming.

The elk originated in China and once had a glorious history. There are many anecdotes and poems about the elk in ancient Chinese books. It was once on the verge of extinction and wandered in a foreign land. Today, the elk has long returned to its homeland and the population has regained vitality.

Recently, at the 63rd Science Cafe event, Bai Jiade, director of the Beijing Milu Ecological Experimental Center, told the audience about the past and present of the Milu population and the various measures taken by China to protect Milu. As a first-class protected animal in China, from extinction in the wild to reintroduction, from population rejuvenation to release into the wild, the "rebirth" of Milu in China has become an important model for the protection of endangered wildlife.

The history of elk is tortuous and legendary

Elk belongs to the Cervidae family and prefers swamps and wetlands with mild climates. It was once widely distributed in the plains and swamps in the Yangtze River and Yellow River basins in my country, and has a history of 2 to 3 million years.

"The antlers of elk usually fall off around the winter solstice, but the antlers can stand upright after falling. As early as the pre-Qin period, people used elk as the main target of winter hunting, and it became a ritual of 'keeping watch for the new year,'" said Bai Jiade.

During the Shang and Zhou dynasties, the elk population reached its peak. Legend has it that Jiang Ziya's mount was an elk.

Due to the influence of multiple factors such as climate change, habitat reduction and human hunting, the wild population of elk is gradually decreasing.

"In the early Qing Dynasty, the last group of elks in China were released in Beijing's Nanyuan." Bai Jiade said that in 1865, French missionary Armand David discovered elks in Beijing's Nanyuan and transported the elk specimens to the Natural History Museum in Paris, France. Since then, Chinese elks have become famous all over the world.

Since the Tongzhi period of the Qing Dynasty, Britain, France, Germany and other countries have successively transported dozens of elks from Beijing Nanyuan. In 1900, the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded China, and the few remaining elks in Beijing Nanyuan were robbed and killed by Western powers. Since then, elks have become extinct in China.

From 1894 to 1901, the 11th Duke of Bedford collected 18 elks scattered around Europe and raised them in Woburn Abbey Manor. Woburn Abbey Manor has a beautiful environment with grasslands, lakes and hills, which is suitable for elks to survive. Since then, these 18 elks have multiplied and their descendants have continued to spread all over the world.

"Three steps" to help elk "rebirth" in the local area

After the founding of New China, the work of bringing the elk "back home" was launched one after another.

Bai Jiade told reporters that the work of rebuilding and protecting the elk population in my country can be summarized as a "three-step" strategy. The first step is population rejuvenation, the second step is ex situ protection, and the third step is release into the wild.

Population rejuvenation means to ensure that elk has a sufficient basic population through breeding.

From 1985 to 1987, my country reintroduced 38 elks from Wubangsi Manor. These 38 elks crossed the ocean and settled in Nanhaizi Elk Park in Daxing, Beijing. Researchers cleared the wetland silt, introduced clean water, planted high-quality forage grasses such as barley grass and alfalfa, and carefully prepared a diet for the elks.

In 1986, another 39 elks crossed the ocean and moved from zoos in London, England and other places to the Dafeng Elk National Nature Reserve in Jiangsu.

The careful care has made the breeding of elk go smoothly. In 1996, the number of elk in Beijing Nanhaizi Elk Park increased by 5.5 times to 250, and the number of elk in Jiangsu Dafeng Elk Reserve increased by 9 times to 388.

On August 27, 2019, elks roamed freely in the Nanhaizi Elk Park in Daxing, Beijing.

The second step is ex situ conservation, which means that in order to effectively protect a species, the species is moved from one place to another place suitable for the species to live.

Bai Jiade pointed out that the migration of species habitats can bring about minor changes in the genes of mammals. These changes will increase the genetic diversity of elk, improve their evolutionary potential, health status and ability to resist environmental changes.

It is understood that Beijing Nanhaizi Elk Park has formulated an ex situ protection plan to export some elks to the Yangtze River Tianezhou Wetland in Shishou City, Hubei Province. The local government has established the Hubei Shishou Elk National Nature Reserve for this purpose.

As of 2022, 89 ex situ conservation populations of elk have been established across the country.

The ultimate goal of milu deer protection is to release them back into the wild. Since October 1993, milu deer have been sent to the Hubei Shishou Milu Deer National Nature Reserve, where they have become important "players" for the adaptation training for release into the wild.

In 1998, the Yangtze River was hit by a flood, and the fence of the Hubei Shishou Elk National Nature Reserve was washed away, allowing 34 elks to "escape".

"Elk are good swimmers," Bai Jiade said with a smile. "The escaped elk may feel that the world is vast. Some of them settled in Yangpotan and Sanhewan near the nature reserve. Some simply crossed the Yangtze River, swam from the north to the south of the Yangtze River, and fled all the way to Dongting Lake in Hunan." As of the end of 2022, the natural populations formed by the escaped groups in the three regions exceeded 200.

In 2018, 47 elks were released into the Poyang Lake wetland area in Jiangxi Province, and are now able to reproduce freely in the wild.

Creating a model for wildlife protection

Elk is one of the important members of the natural ecosystem, and protecting elk is of great significance to the stability and balance of the ecological environment.

As of 2022, the population of elk in my country has grown from more than 70 in the early stage of reintroduction to more than 10,000. Among them, there are more than 7,000 elks in the Dafeng Elk National Nature Reserve in Jiangsu Province, and more than 1,500 elks in the core area of ​​the Shishou Elk National Nature Reserve in Hubei Province. Over the years, the substantial increase in population has helped elk protection break through the genetic bottleneck and established a "gene bank" for the continued survival of elks.

At present, the natural population of elk has been successfully born, and its distribution is close to the historical distribution area of ​​elk.

At the same time, my country has also achieved a number of results in the research of elk biology. Not only has it gradually formed elk breeding and management technology, but it has also made breakthroughs in elk tissue anatomy and disease prevention and control, providing scientific support for further protection of elk.

In February 2021, Science published an article titled "Reversing the Extinction of the Chinese Elk". The study pointed out that the restoration of the wild population of the Chinese Elk is a model for biodiversity conservation.