Wild Once More? --Restoring the Formosan Sika Deer

(Prelude)

People have begun to realize that conservation work cannot focus only on "star animals." Hence considerable debate has erupted over whether the ecological conservation plan which has received the greatest amount of investment in recent years--rebuilding the Formosan sika deer population--should be continued, and whether their wilderness preserve should be expanded to areas beyond the confines of Kenting National Park.

A species endemic to Taiwan that has disappeared in the wild, the Formosan sika deer has been the subject of repopulation efforts for ten years. Today the deer have returned to the embrace of nature, cantering through Kenting National Park.

Recently the ROC Construction and Planning Administration assessed the feasibility of repopulating Yangmingshan National Park with sika deer. One day, under a distant spring sun, a herd of deer will frolic among the enchanted mountains and streams of Yangmingshan. It seems that reinstating the Formosan sika should really raise a round of applause.

Surprisingly, voices of doubt have arisen from all directions. These cries of concern have unexpectedly come from environmentalist scholars and conservation groups. Why?

(Act One) O Spirit, Return!

Animal fossils that are currently being unearthed in Taiwan clearly reveal that millions of years ago in prehistoric times, the sika deer walked on the soil of Taiwan.

Stretching back to antiquity, the sika and Taiwan's two other members of the deer family (Cervidae)--the Formosan Reeve's muntjac and the Formosan sambar--maintained a tacit agreement of living in distinct habitats at low, middle and high elevations respectively, peacefully sharing vegetation resources. Sometimes they were hunted by indigenous people or clouded leopards, and a few of their companions were lost, but as a rule they were this land's most prosperous inhabitants.

Four hundred years ago, a great wave of humanity began to arrive from beyond the ocean or across the Taiwan Strait. The people descending in a swarm from all sides exclaimed, "Go! Go forward to that land of plump, lovely deer, surrounded by 400 kinds of multicolored butterflies, to that beautiful Ilha Formosa."

Before long, the Dutch were exporting 100,000 deer skins from Taiwan every year.

The herds of sika deer, who ranged in the lowest altitudes (stretching from the plains up to low-lying mountain areas), were very frightened. They breathed in whispers, and the king of the deer despondently led the herd in retreat. But where could they go that was safe? In the end, a small minority found themselves in the corrals of humankind, and the wilderness became the deer's paradise lost.

Twenty-seven years ago, in a field in eastern Taiwan, the last Formosan sika allowed humans an astonishing glimpse of itself, and thereafter the deer disappeared.

For many years, locales all the way from the plains to mid-elevation mountainous areas were given names that made reference to deer--Lukang City, Luchiaokeng River, Mt. Luchang, and so forth. ("Lu" in Chinese means "deer.") Those who know history are left with a trace of sadness, but when young people hear these place names, they may very well think, our old ancestors were probably using their imaginations!

Twelve years ago, a group of scholars from the national park system selected a group of sika at the Yuanshan zoo that had been raised in captivity for a long time, and began to rehabilitate them in Kenting National Park.

On April 23 of last year, the deer were released into the wild. "Go back! Go back to the forests whence your ancestors came. May you prosper and multiply. May your ways be passed on from generation to generation."

(Act Two) The Human Debate

Meanwhile, a cacophony of contentious voices arose. As the wild sika deer vanished, many sika had become domesticated livestock. They had been constantly inbreeding, leading lives of repeated mating and giving up their antlers, blood and bones. Some people asked, why must we rehabilitate a species of animal that has already become livestock? How is transplanting the sika deer from a zoo any different from animal husbandry? Wild Formosan sika have already disappeared; at this stage, isn't rebuilding the population of a vanished species simply "playing games at the zoo"? What is the value in reintroducing sika deer to the wild?

Moreover, the world has been swiftly changing, as has the ancestral home of the Formosan sika. The grassy plains have turned into farm fields, the green forests have turned into orchards, and the land where man was rarely seen is covered with wall- to-wall people. Will restoring the sika deer population really help them return to the past? What is the purpose of repopulation? Is the goal to see sika loiter forever within the national park?

Livestock or wildlife?

The scholars overseeing the repopulation work explain that they had no alternative but to select deer for repopulation from those in the zoo. Nevertheless, this group of sika do not have inferior genes; otherwise, they would have disappeared long ago. When the program was begun, DNA analysis was performed on the zoo's sika deer, and they discovered that the deer's genetic variation was still very high. At least the herd members were different enough to be acceptable, and the repopulation process was started. Of course, reintroducing a species to the wild is very different from the artificial breeding performed in professional animal husbandry. In an artificial wild habitat, the deer must be gradually paired up and monitored. They must adapt to the wild setting and be tested by the powers of nature. The process takes a lot of time, and repopulation work is not so simple as artificial breeding.

But as long as the sika deer maintain healthy genes throughout the repopulation process, their adaptability, like all Cervidae, is very strong. Examples from other countries are extremely common. They are able to coexist with humanity, often appearing in parks and the outskirts of urban areas to beg for food. Today people all over Taiwan are raising sheep and setting water buffalo loose in the wild. We can be sure that the Formosan sika will have no problem surviving. It is the dangers posed to juvenile deer by wild dogs that causes concern.

Nevertheless, today with human footsteps covering every stretch of the land, it is impossible to let the deer go completely wild. Not wanting to put all their eggs in one basket, project personnel hope to select repopulation locales in northern, eastern and southern Taiwan. Since they have been operating in Kenting (in the south) for 12 years now, Yangming-shan National Park (in the north) is being considered as the second locale.

Ecosystem killers?

But is the Yangmingshan area suitable as a wild deer habitat? Some members of the academic community are skeptical. Examples from abroad indicate that cervine species can be prolific destroyers of vegetation and can bring much grief to homo sapiens. Deer are also particularly prolific procreators, with a gestation period of a few short months. Many animals, such as the clouded leopard, that in former days roamed Taiwan hunting the sika deer and serving as their natural predators have also vanished from the wild. If deer are placed back into the wild, will they damage the rare plants of the Yang-mingshan area? In the future, who will play the role of their natural predator?

In the past, the government encouraged farmers to develop a deer-herding industry. Not long after this, the animals were overbred, their market value dropped, and they were let loose in many different locations. Green Island is the best example to date. There the Formosan sika is presenting a menace to trees that are the homes of one of Taiwan's endemic bat species, the Formosan flying fox.

Up to the present a population of Formosan sika deer has yet to be established with genuine success. They can only live within the set confines of a national park, and developing a stable herd still must depend on humans working to protect the environment. Governmental expenditure is a certainty. Is it worth it to devote so many resources to a single program? Wouldn't it be more appropriate to spend this money on maintaining wildlife habitats and other related work?

The experiences of the United States should serve as a warning. Because of administrative financial difficulties, their environmental conservation budget is limited. Many wildlife conservation activities are even limited to private lands. This has led to a reaction, in which many voices have arisen claiming that more human energy and material should be focused on protecting entire ecosystems and habitats.

Should there be an argument?

Construction and Planning Administration personnel explain: Repopulation is for the purpose of releasing the deer into the wild in the future. Evaluations will be made as to the food and water sources the deer will need after they are released, the impact they will have on farmland at the edges of the park, and the performance of the repopulation project in Kenting.

The repopulation process has expended a lot of human energy and financial resources, but the understanding of the sika deer's reproductive habits and physiology which we have gradually gained from this program can serve as a precedent for future research. Has too much money been focused on the Formosan sika deer? In fact, in making a comparison, we might draw the conclusion that Taiwan simply invests very little in environmental conservation work. Expenditures on wildlife repopulation are scant indeed compared to other parts of the national budget. Constructing a single highway costs billions of NT dollars. In Western countries every plan to rehabilitate a wildlife species consumes an even greater amount of manpower, material and time. Taiwan's conservation work only has two relatively large-scale programs, for the sika and for the Formosan landlocked salmon. In the near future, it is virtually impossible to foresee Taiwan organizing similar large-scale conservation projects. For this reason, there will not and should not be a clamor raised that too many resources and money are being invested in sika deer.

Scholars who support repopulation point out: Yangmingshan has place names like Deer Rise Flats (Luchueh Ping) and Antler Hole River (Luchiao-keng Hsi), attesting to the fact that Formosan sika roamed the area in times past. Nowadays, water buffalo, mountain goats and wild dogs have been let loose to wander around the mountains of Yangmingshan, and people have no problems putting up with them. Yet some are worried that sika deer will impact the ecology, and they cannot permit the addition of a single species of herbivores to the Yangmingshan area. Why not?

In the West, when populations of deer or related species have grown and stabilized, a certain extent of human hunting is often instituted, because a suitable degree of predation is a good method of resource management. Hunting activities have still been going on in Taiwan's mountainous areas over the last few decades. The indigenous peoples' hunting culture has a long tradition; for them, hunting is an important cultural rite. In this light, after the deer's numbers have stabilized, the possibility could be considered of allowing an appropriate level of hunting activities, letting indigenous people play the role of natural predators.

Of course, at different stages people have had different ways of thinking. Today if people are not willing to use hunting as a means of controlling animal populations, many alternatives are available. In the past, elephants were shot in South Africa in order to control their numbers. Today, when elephant numbers rise too high, they are given contraception. In the future, if sika deer numbers really do increase, whether we choose to protect all of them, utilize some of them commercially or just open up access for non-consumptive uses like tourism, it will be an even greater challenge.

Conservation doesn't equal repopulation

But besides adding a handful of sika to the national parks, will the program have a more positive ecological significance? For instance, will it indirectly help other animal species, like the Formosan sambar? Or will it, on the contrary, give people the wrong impression, leading them to believe that conservation is only a numbers game? Will it be able to remind everyone that without a wilderness environment, repopulation is nothing but captive breeding?

Animal repopulation is an inescapable method of conservation, but it must be used as a last resort in solving problems. Repopulation work is the worst method of conservation. When a species is on the brink of extinction, and no measures will help, repopulation work begins. But today repopulation efforts are viewed as crucial to Taiwan's environmental protection work. This universal enthusiasm for repopulation is a cause for worry.

There are also too many other even more pressing things that need to be done. Many animal species face extinction, while others, like the Formosan sambar, still have a small population living in the wild. If we do not start paying attention to them right now and genuinely implementing conservation measures, will we have to wait until they are like the sika deer and spend a huge load of money taking them from a breeding farm and building up their numbers from scratch?

Learning from our mistakes

Wang Ying, a professor of biology at Taiwan Normal University who has participated in Formosan sika repopulation efforts, has come to have deep feelings about the issue. Environmental protection work is a new subject for the entire human race. What is right and what is wrong? There are no extremely simple answers. Researchers always face new questions and new challenges. They must constantly think of ways to solve problems and furnish opinions.

To implement conservation work, one subject must be selected as a first objective. The environmentalist community can deliberate for a lifetime, but the disappearance of animal species from the natural world is like a raging fire, and we must quickly throw the fire alarm. In the midst of all the rush, errors naturally occur. People should learn from mistakes and move ever closer to the ideal.

For the early days of Taiwan's ecology movement, the sika deer project was an unusual experiment, bringing together experts from different fields to work as a team. Saying in retrospect that those who trailblazed before us have led us all astray is being unfair to the people who have worked to bring the sika deer back.

Scholarship is just a small part of environmental conservation work. Practical administration, bureaucratic supervision and law are also involved. Especially when people's opinions are involved, contradictions often occur. For instance, in some European countries there was discussion of returning the brown bear to its original habitat. The city dwellers were in favor of rehabilitating the brown bear to roam free through their old haunts, but the farming communities objected to the threat the bears would pose.

Though scientifically speaking all animal species are equally important, funding decisions for wildlife preservation are usually made neither equitably nor scientifically. The Formosan sika deer's habitat is an object of biological study, but whether the sika should be reintroduced to the wild involves such perspectives as culture, public opinion and tourism. There may be a variety of considerations, especially because the public is very difficult to motivate. Perhaps a repopulation project can attract more attention, inspire people to care about the problem, and generate discussion. It might also serve as a microcosm of Taiwan's overall environmental conservation problem, and in carrying it out we can learn how to manage natural resources.

If we look at the Formosan sika as cultural property, they embody the history of our forbears' struggle and endeavor. The purpose of sika deer repopu-lation is therefore not merely to mend a defective ecosystem. Its cultural and educational functions are significant. Repopulation is a beneficent compensation, a means for people to make penance for the past destruction of nature, and to return something back to nature.

Why do environmental groups object?

The environmental groups remind everyone: In April of last year Kenting National Park released the first group of Formosan sika deer into the wild, but they have yet to publish an evaluation report on the impact to the environment. This makes it very obvious that governmental organizations do not genuinely respect environmental conservation, but are only in a hurry to demonstrate results.

In fact, ecological networks are very broad; they will not immediately collapse with the extinction of a single species. But just as in the case of culture, when the exterior environment which nourishes something has already disappeared, even if it is revived, won't it be an empty shell without life?

Conservation must be achieved through a number of different methods. Repopulation is an option, because it still has an educational function. But to only reinstate the animals' population without protecting their habitat would be hypocritical.

It is hard to deny the research value of Formosan sika rehabilitation, but the government's commitment toward other species is limited, or even non- existent. It has spent a great amount of funds on a few species like the Formosan landlocked salmon and the Formosan sika, but concern for the maroon oriole and other species is conspicuously absent. A huge quantity of cash is spent on rebuilding sika deer numbers, but the southern cross-island highway will be allowed to divide the Mt. Tawu clouded leopard nature preserve.

In the media, sika deer repopulation appears to be something glorious, but it also proves that the national park service is only trying to impress people. It has no positive meaning for conservation work; it only makes manifest the fact that the government will inevitably undertake environmental conservation work only to win honor and commendation.

(Final scene)

The Formosan sika deer go on living without saying a word. The humans continue to debate.