The story of David's deer is one of survival.

David's deer roamed freely in China up until the Zhou Dynasty (1100 BC - 256 BC) when their numbers began to dwindle. At the end of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), 120 David's deer were raised in an imperial hunting ground at Nanhaizi in south Beijing. But floods and an ensuing war resulted in their disappearance altogether. 

In the spring of 1956, the London Animal Welfare Society sent as a gift two pairs of David's deer to the China Animal Welfare Society. Unfortunately, the animals didn't reproduce. In 1973, another two pairs of deer were sent to China, and a decade later, 12 deer were bred in captivity.

In 1984, 39 David's deer were presented to China by the World Wildlife Fund. The deer were kept in Dafeng Nature Reserves in east China's Jiangsu Province.