Sunday is International biodiversity day. People all over the world are participating in different activities to increase awareness for protecting and conserving the variety of life on the planet. And on this occasion, a group of ten endangered deer in China, known as milu, have been released into the wild in Hebei Province's town of Mulan.
A group of deer, known as Pere David's deer in the West, or milu in China, are finally back in nature. These ten milu were loaded onto a truck after being tranquilized Saturday morning in Beijing. And after a six-hour trip, they arrived in Mulan.
Located on the upstream of the Luan River, this 60,000-square meter land with lush greenery and abundant water, is their new home.
"The habitats of Milu are quite different from other animals. They prefer low-lying and swampy areas," Wang Guzhong with Mulan Forest Administration Bureau said.
The National nature reserve here used to have a plentiful population of milu.
"It takes time to adapt to the environment, but we are confident that with appropriate management, these new milu will get used to living with the other ones. In the future, we perhaps will put them in big breeding farms," Wang said.
Over-hunting, climate change and the shrinking of wetlands have made milu an extremely endangered species.
The release of the ten milu is aimed at helping to expand the endangered species' population and moreover, to maintain the biodiversity of the whole environment.
"The extinction of one species can have an incredible effect on the environment. And once the environment changes, there will be more and more animals and plants that risk extinction," Song Yuan with Milu Ecological Experiment Center said.
The coexistence of different kinds of animals and plants makes a balanced environment and is imperative for human life. And the rapidly growing number of endangered species continues to remind us that. Saving the animals, is indeed saving ourselves.
