Dafeng Milu National Nature Reserve

The Dafeng Milu National Nature Reserve, about 80 kilometres south of Yancheng city, protects the world's largest wild population of Père David's deer — a species found nowhere else on earth. The deer are large, shaggy, and strange-looking, with antlers that branch backward rather than forward, and their presence in their coastal reed-bed habitat is quietly surreal.

The reserve covers 78 square kilometres of wetland and coastal grassland and can be toured on foot or by vehicle. Guided tours are available and recommended — the terrain is flat but the reserve is large enough to require transport, and guides know where the herds currently are. The best time to visit is spring (March–May) when calves are visible alongside the herds, or autumn when the stags are in rut. A combined day trip covering both the milu reserve and sections of the bird wetlands makes a full day's excursion from Yancheng.

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A story
Père David's deer (milu) was extinct in the wild by the late 19th century — the last populations survived only in the Qing imperial hunting park in Beijing. In 1985, eighteen deer were returned from a British duke's estate where the species had been preserved in captivity since 1900, and released into this coastal reserve. Today the wild population numbers over seven thousand — an improbable conservation success story built on one English aristocrat's decision to keep an unusual deer.

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