High-risk Adventure and High-flying Romance

In an unusual partnership between a British aristocrat and the Chinese government brought together a victory in conservation, with a near-extinct species of deer now prosperous in its original habitat.

The Pere David’s deer, of which those that were left lived in an imperial hunting park in Beijing, of which had nearly been wiped out by the European soldiers in the Boxer uprising of 1900. The last known animal in China was shot in 1939.

At the home of the Dukes of Bedford, at Woburn Abbey a small number survived. 1985 saw the Marquess of Tavistock (later the 14 th duke) present 22 deer to the South Lake Garden . This is a reserve that was made from the imperial park, as a sign of Sino-British friendship.

The deer have since then been released into the wild in central China , where the species originally came from on the banks of the Yangtze River . There are now a number of roughly 1,000, an extraordinary conservation success that has today been recognised by awarding one of the five initial China Wildlife Conservation Awards to the South Lake Garden .

The Chinese name for Pere David’s deer is fitting. Sibuxiang translates as “Four (animals) but not like any of them”, for they are said to have a deer’s antlers, a camel’s neck, a cow’s hooves and a donkey’s tail.

Slowly they were hunted almost to the point of extinction, even though they have been an imperial symbol since the 11 th century BC. The last remaining few were kept in Beijing, it was here that the first Europeans saw them, was an eccentric French missionary, Fr Armand David, he managed to persuade the two guards to let him look over the wall.

The herd that was at Woburn descended from the animals that Fr David and the French ambassador had convinced the emperor to donate to France , Germany and Britain .

The president of WildAid, Steve Trent said “This has been a huge success”. WildAid is a charity that sponsored the awards with the China Environmental Protection Foundation.

"As an example of conservation it's quite unusual. You have a crazy French missionary, an English aristocrat and the whole history of China ."

The park’s manager, Cai Xuegin said that it had branches out into some other conservation work after the success with the deer.

"It's the first time we have ever won an international award," she said.

"Now we have 120 of the deer, and we are having to control the number of visitors to prevent their environment being ruined."