Sika deer in the city
A city, a herd of deer, a conscientious environmental organization, and caring citizens together constitute the most beautiful picture of the harmonious coexistence of citizens and deer.
A deer child fell from the sky
At nine o'clock in the morning, Lin Yusong and his wife came to the hillside only a few hundred meters away from the community to visit their special child "Lulu".
Mr. and Mrs. Lin Yusong and their deer child
Mr. and Mrs. Lin Yusong are staff members of the Wilderness Nature Conservation Center, a non-governmental environmental protection organization in Dalian, and the "deer deer" is a sika deer they rescued four years ago.
In June 2020, Lin Yusong's environmental group received a call for help when a newborn sika deer tumbled down a hillside behind a residential building. After Lin Yusong and the others arrived at the scene, they urgently sent the deer to the hospital for examination.
The "deer deer" who has just been rescued
The fawn's physical condition is not bad, but because he has not drunk breast milk, he has serious problems with dehydration and anemia. The rescue team initially tried to feed the fawn goat's milk from a bottle, but it could not suck the pacifier and by the next day it was dying of hunger.
"Deer Deer" has a hard time drinking milk
The rescue team tried to feed the fawn with goat milk on their hands, which allowed the fawn to successfully eat the milk and finally get out of danger.
This reborn fawn shows an amazing ability to "dry rice". You have to drink half a catty of goat's milk in one meal, and you have to eat ten meals a day. After more than a month, the fawn's appetite increased greatly, and at most ten catties of goat's milk were drunk a day.
"Dry rice deer" pleasant meal time
Lin Yusong (staff member of the Wild Nature Conservation Center): "Goat milk is not very easy to buy, we have organized a lot of people to buy it in various supermarkets and business outlets, as long as there is goat milk, no matter how much money it has, we will quickly buy it." ”
As the fawns grow, the food gradually changes from goat's milk to feed and vegetables. Under the careful feeding of the rescue team, the fawn grew up healthy and lively. Lin Yusong named it "Lulu", and sometimes simply called it "Luer". Because Lin Yusong and his wife feel that "Lulu" is like their own children.
"Deer Deer" Hirotaka Wabayashi
Although the relationship is getting deeper and deeper, the couple understands that Xiaolu wants to live with the deer mother after all, and Lin Yusong and his wife began to help "Lulu" find his mother. They led the "deer deer" to Lotus Mountain, trying to make the "deer deer" blend into the deer herd here. In the face of the deer, the "deer deer" is very eager to get close to them, but some doe who have never brought their cubs are full of hostility to the "deer deer" and will even attack it. Seeing that other fawns were pampered by their parents, but they didn't find their mothers, "Lulu" was a little depressed.
"Deer deer" who fell down alone
But the breath of the mountains and wilderness awakened the agility in the blood of the "deer deer", which made it quickly happy and ran wildly in the woods or grass. The cheerfulness of "Lulu" in the face of nature made Lin Yusong decide to send it back to the embrace of nature.
The road to the release of the deer children
In order to return the "deer deer" to nature, Lin Yusong and his wife began to rewild the "deer deer". They often take the "deer deer" to the mountains, parks, and meadows, so that they can see more of the natural environment.
Lin Yusong led the "Lulu" rewilding training
In the wild, "deer deer" tend to be particularly happy and run wildly. But no matter how far it runs, as long as it hears Lin Yusong's whistle, it will rush back
Lin Yusong: "'Lulu' has listened to me whistling since I was a child. So as soon as I whistled, it knew to come down the mountain and follow us, and it remembered my whistle the most. Many citizens look at our reindeer and feel very envious. Saying that others are walking dogs, and you are walking deer, is too windy. ”
"Walking the deer" was watched by onlookers
After raising "Lulu" for four months, Lin Yusong and his wife were ready to release "Lulu". They carefully selected a new home for the "deer", located in a good part of the city, near the mountains and rivers, where there is not only a large artificial lake, but also a herd of deer living nearby.
Because he was worried that the "deer deer" would not be able to merge into the herd and encounter danger, Lin Yusong specially brought a locator to it before it was released.
"Deer deer" ready to return to nature
The moment of separation soon came, and Lin Yusong took pictures of "Lulu" for the last time and fed it again. And the deer child seems to know that he is about to be separated from his human parents, and he seems very reluctant.
Lin Yusong and "Lulu" were reluctant
Lin Yusong: "After going up the mountain, it realized that it might be released, and it didn't leave me an inch. It sniffs me and licks me. If it doesn't lick enough, it can't push it down, and it has to go up my shoulder. ”
Lin Yusong is not at ease with the "deer deer" released alone, and pays attention to its dynamics through the locator every day. He found that for the first five days, Lulu had not been far from the location where it had been released. Separated from its human parents and without a doe to lead it, it seems to be a little uneasy and frightened in the face of an unfamiliar wild environment.
"Deer Deer" who faces a new environment alone
In order to appease the emotions of the deer child, Lin Yusong and his wife also visited it. When Lulu sees them, he always bows and tries to get the couple to take it home. This made Lin Yusong very unbearable, but in the end he chose to stay away. Because if you want to return to nature and return to the deer herd, "deer deer" will have to face this strange world by herself after all.
Two years have passed, and the former fawn has grown tall and muscular, and has successfully integrated into the herd. This is the first time Lin Yusong has come to see it after the release, and when he saw Lin Yusong's "deer deer", the first thing he did was to stand up and put two hooves on his shoulders.
When he grew up, "Lulu" still coquetted Lin Yusong
This time, Lin Yusong took off the GPS collar on the "deer deer", which symbolizes its farewell to human parents, and it will live completely independently.
The "City of Deer" full of love
It is no accident that the sika deer, a national first-class protected animal, appeared in Dalian. The earliest sightings of wild sika deer here date back to 2004. After 20 years of breeding and growth, there are currently nearly 400 wild sika deer living in the urban area.
Although the hilly terrain and forest vegetation in the urban area provide a home for the deer herd, the urban environment is not enough to support the survival of a large deer herd. Today's population is due to the kindness of local environmental organizations and citizens to wild deer.
Since ten years ago, some citizens have spontaneously fed these sika deer with food, and now these deer volunteers have formed a team of hundreds of people.
In May, there is no grass growing on the hills, and it is difficult for the deer to find food. If artificial feeding is not carried out, the situation of the doe without food during the breeding period will be very critical. As a result, volunteers set up supplementary feeding points in several places where sika deer activities are more frequent, and regularly put okara and wheat bran every day.
Zhang Yuan (Dalian deer protection volunteer): "It's not that we can feed them, but when the food is insufficient, we come to supply them every day." We set off between 4:30 and 5 a.m., because we had to replenish all the food before going to work, so that we would feel more at ease when we went to work. Otherwise, there will be a feeling of 'oops, I didn't cook for my kids today'. ”
Zhang Yuan and other volunteers who feed sika deer have a common principle, which is to try to avoid getting too close to sika deer, so as not to make sika deer dependent on people. The call when feeding every day is the most intimate communication between her and the sika deer. The deer also responded to Zhang Yuan with a crisp deer chirping, which belonged to the tacit understanding between her and the sika deer.
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On this day, Lin Yusong and his wife took the favorite snack of "Lulu" and red dates to visit it, can the former "Luer" still recognize them?
Producer: Tang Damai
Choreographer: Wang Dingyao
Editor: Yu Yan