By Peng Junjun Jiang Jianhua and Xin Yu

At Rudong Xiaoyangkou coastal wetland, a group of wild milu deer appeared among lush Spartina anglica Hubb. A few ‘baby deer’ with plum blossom spots were drinking milk, learning to walk and playing in the group... on 21 May, the 6 ‘Nantong resident’ baby milu deer which were discovered in the first batch were already ‘one month old’.

Milu deer is a natural species in China. It is National First Class Protected Animal. It disappeared in the wild for several times. After years of hard work, artificial breeding population was increasing continuously, and wild population was established again. On 21 April, camera for watching birds set by Nantong Environmental Monitoring Center on the beach took a photo of a brown baby milu deer. It was stumbling in the migrating milu deer group, which was quite lovely.

‘In the present there are in total about 130 milu deer in Nantong. According to preliminary statistics, there are 55 male deer and 57 female deer, and at least 19 baby deer which were born lately.’ Zhang Zaifeng, director of Nantong Environmental Monitoring Center said.