The Wildlife Conservation Society’s Bronx Zoo welcomed four bouncing, baby Père David’s deer fawns this April which will be exhibited with the herd.
The Père David’s deer also known as ‘milu’ are endemic to China and were once kept by the Emperor in the Nanyuang Royal Hunting Garden during the Qing Dynasty.
The species were all but gone by the 1860s, but were saved when French missionary Père Armand David, discovered the garden and smuggled several animals out of China to Paris in 1866.
Today, Père David’s deer only exist in human care and are classified as extinct in the wild by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The Bronx Zoo has maintained a herd of Père David’s deer since 1946 and including the four new fawns have produced 165 offspring over the years.
