The tale of two deer: management of Père David’s deer and sika deer in anthropogenic landscape of eastern Asia

Abstract

Père David’s deer (Elaphurus davidianus) and sika deer (Cervus nippon) occupy two contrasting types of niches in eastern Asia: Père David’s deer is a swamp deer adapted to wetlands, while the sika deer mainly live in forested areas. Both Père David’s deer and sika deer have been hunted since the early days of the hunting and gathering civilisation; however, these two deer have undergone different population histories. As human society entered the era of agriculture civilisation, Père David’s deer gradually lost its habitats to farmlands, and the population was greatly reduced until, finally, it became extinct in the wild in 1900. Fortunately, after 30 years of restoration and introduction, more than 4000 Père David’s deer thrive in nature reserves, zoos and safari parks in China, and more than 500 Père David’s deer could be found in the wild in 2014. Populations of wild sika deer were reduced as well due to hunting and deforestation, and were restricted in the forest patches in the mountains in eastern Asia. Nevertheless, the sika deer in China and Japan have different fortunes. Sika deer in China did not escape the prevalent tragedy of domestication, in that wild sika deer was endangered or extirpated in its original habitats, while the farmed sika deer thrived since late 1950s. Sika deer populations in Japan also remained at low density in the mid-1950s due to over-hunting, including poaching. After one-quarter of a century of in situ protection, sika populations are still small in China and some populations were found to leave the nature reserve to areas with high human densities, while the wild sika deer in Japan have markedly increased in numbers and extended their geographic distribution during the past few decades. Accordingly, the management strategies in China and Japan were completely different. The Chinese government is seeking all the efforts on the conservation of sika deer, while the Japanese government is revising laws to harvest and to reduce sika deer population.