A Night Soil Story
Chapter 1: The Milu
What does it require to achieve conservation success? Effective planning? Certainly. Enough resources? Absolutely. Huge commitment? No doubt. And luck. For even the most well organised, intensive conservation action plan will probably need Lady Luck at some point to smile favourably on the efforts. The story of the Père David’s deer (or the Chinese name of milu) is one that encompasses all these factors.
The historical range of the milu is uncertain; unearthed fossil records show that milu were widely distributed along the eastern seaboard of China and in the alluvial plains of the Yangtze River.
This uncertainty has also partially resulted from the word milu (“su-bu-xiang” meaning “four un-alikes”, i.e. with the tail of a donkey, hooves of a cow, neck of a camel and antlers of a deer). Unfortunately, the term “su-bu-xiang” is given to any bizarre looking animal, be they camel, reindeer or others – as we can see in the writings of a Chinese traveller returning from western China and seeing a herd of “su-bu-xiang” at Kokonor. These were obviously camel and not milu. The species was probably extirpated from its natural habitat many centuries ago. It is certainly well adapted to living in the boggy wetlands of central China, and the current accepted thinking is that the Yangtze River valley is the most likely area where the species evolved, although there are reported fossils of the milu elsewhere, including Japan. Hunting, urbanisation, land change and conflict issues were all almost certainly ultimately responsible for the demise of the milu, which is currently classified as Extinct in the Wild on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
It is not known what highest population levels ever were, but a reasonable guess would be several million animals, roaming freely through eastern China. Ancient Chinese literature cites thousands of milu swimming in the waters off the coast of Shandong Province. By the time Father Armand David first saw the species – inside the Imperial Hunting Park (now the Beijing Biodiversity Conservation Research Centre, at Nan Haizi, south of Beijing) – there were no other known herds roaming freely in China.
He recognised that this was a species that did not fit any descriptions of other deer, and postulated that this was a “new species to western science”. That Père David spotted this (one anecdote has him riding a horse and peering over the wall of the hunting park), and its significance, is without doubt one of the most important events in the survival of the milu today, although several key individuals did later play their part, showing great commitment to the species. Through the offices of the French Legation in China, Père David succeeded in shipping some hides, fragments of antlers and bones to the Museum of Natural History in Paris, where they were identified as a new species and, in the honour of Père David (who had also brought the Giant panda to the attention of the western world), given the name Elaphurus davidianus. Later, once again through the help of the French Legation, some live animals were shipped to Jardin d’Acclimatation in Paris, from where other individuals were subsequently distributed to Berlin and Antwerp zoos.
In 1896 there were 18 animals in Europe. Herbrand, the 11th Duke of Bedford – understanding the rarity of the breed but also the threat posed by the breeched wall surrounding the Imperial Hunting Park – decided to collect all remaining animals in Europe and bring them to his family estate, Woburn Abbey. As milu were faring poorly in European zoos at that time, the Duke instructed his animal dealer, Mr Hagenbeck, to gather them into a single group of animals. That this herd thrived and multiplied, surviving two world wars, is a testimony to the commitment of Herbrand and his son Hastings, the 12th Duke of Bedford. It was a blessing that they were as committed as they were. In 1895 the wall of the Imperial Hunting Park had collapsed and was never repaired. Over the following few years, the milu inside the park left or were poached (this was also the time of the collapse of the imperial dynasties of China and there were a great many changes taking place), with the result that the last herd of milu in China was gone by the end of the 19th Century.
Eighteen animals left in the world is not many. In fact, with such a low number, the chances of a single virus wiping out the entire herd are high. It has been calculated that the world population derives from only 11 individuals. Of the animals in Woburn Abbey, there were two fawns, seven males and nine females. We know, from the diaries of Mary, Duchess of Bedford, that the two fawns never grew to breeding age; two females from Berlin Zoo were barren and consequently the global breeding stock comprised of seven males and seven females. Unfortunately, we do not have photographs of the males, so we cannot see who bred and who did not (through antler growth each year). Nevertheless, the heavily inbred milu safely passed though the genetic bottleneck of inbreeding and adopted the vast open parkland of the mid-England estate as their new home. Normally, inbreeding would cause deleterious traits in offspring, such as still-borns, high calf death rate, fluctuating facial asymmetry, slower growth rate, etc. In heavily inbred populations, these genes are eliminated, as individuals carrying them will not live up the age of reproduction. Such a process is called genetic purging. During the early days in Woburn Abbey, most deleterious genes in milu were eliminated through genetic purging. How-ever, some deleterious genes may still exist, as calves with a short lower jaw have been born in Beijing Milu Park, but could not survive because the animals with this trait cannot graze.
The Woburn population continued to grow despite the two world wars. At the end of World War II, the size of the Woburn Abbey herd reached 250. To avoid “putting all the eggs in one basket”, the Duke of Bedford decided to relocate some of the milu. Subsequently animals were shipped to other zoological gardens, first to other sites in the UK, then to other parts of the world, but not China, which was going through its own internal crises.
It was not until the 1980s that serious planning took place to return the milu to their native homeland, and ultimately the area where they had most likely evolved. Lord Robin Tavistock (who later became the 14th Duke of Bedford and great-grandson of Herbrand) was instrumental in returning the species to China – fulfilling his dream by organising 22 milu to be sent to China in 1985, from the herd at Woburn Abbey. A second herd of 18 females was sent in 1986. In 1986, after nearly a century’s absence, the first fawns were born in China at Nan Haizi – the same place where they were last seen alive at the turn of the 19th century. The newly established centre at Nan Haizi was the most obvious candidate for the first release of the milu into a park situation, being the site of the former Imperial Hunting Park. The choice of Nan Haizi was important also from another point: the proximity to academic institution and government office that proved vital to the survival of the milu. However, efforts to find new and larger areas did not stop there. A site at Dafeng – a saltwater marsh north of Shanghai – was selected as a site for a reintroduction of milu, mainly through the efforts of WWF and Cao Keqing of the Shanghai Natural History Museum. It was thought that milu were once present in the area, as there are some sub-fossil records to support this, but in any event, it was deemed eminently suitable for the species, and animals were reintroduced there from UK zoos, including both Chester and Whipsnade, in 1986; there they still thrive, with a current population of around 1,000 animals. The desire to return milu to their known former range, however, meant that conservation efforts did not stop with the introduction of the animals at Nan Haizi and Dafeng (and Yuey-ang, a third reserve). Maja Boyd, one of the original team involved with the repatriation of the milu, together with Chinese scientists Wang Zongyi, Yang Rongsheng and Wang Song, carried out extensive research to identify a suitable site in the Yangtze River valley for “wild release”. They concluded that an area on the north shore of the Yangtze River, with natural boundaries, in Hubei Province close to Shishou City, would be the most appropriate for reintroduction, and work proceeded. The river valley and surrounding lakes are home to magnificent reed beds, which make perfect hiding places for milu fawns and foraging adults; milu have a wide-ranging diet, preferring water plants, but will feed on many species and hence the site was eminently suitable for establishing a wild population. In 1993, 30 animals were translocated from Nan Haizi to the area, with further translocations in 1995 and 2003.
Putting a large ungulate back into the wild, however, is not a straight-forward thing. Although the milu is a highly protected species in China (Class 1, the highest level of protection there is), the species’ ability to breed in large numbers, and to forage widely, meant that it was not long before they came into conflict with the farmers growing crops in the region. In an effort to address some of the concerns of the local people, the Hubei Environmental Protection Bureau (which has responsibility for the species within Hubei) gave per-mission for a deer fence to be erected around the release site.
This certainly helped alleviate some of the tensions with the local people, but it gave rise to another challenge – that of managing what was now effectively a captive population, albeit one living in an area that could sustain a large number of deer. In addition, the flooding of the Yangtze River in 1998 resulted in several cohorts of milu leaving the initial release area and forming permanent herds in other parts of the province, as well as around Dongting Lake in Hunan Province. In 2010 the Environmental Protection Bureau appointed a partnership of western experts to develop a 15-year master plan for the area – now entitled the Hubei Shishou Milu National Nature Reserve.
We were those team of experts. Now confronted with the stark reality that we were now involved in another defining moment in history for the species. Lose this population and we would lose any respect from the Chinese in supporting their conservation efforts. We were all aware of the seriousness of the situation. Get it wrong and not only would we lose personal credibility, but the Chinese authorities as well and – even more importantly – the risk of losing a species.
Chapter 2: The Dead
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