Pere David Deer

Pere David's deer went extinct in the wild in China around the end of the nineteenth century and survived only because a French missionary got specimens out to European parks before the last wild ones were gone. Everything alive today descends from a herd of eighteen animals. Taking one in South Texas is an unusual thing to have done, and most hunters who book one book it because they have already taken the ordinary list and want an animal with a story attached.

The animal itself is odd in the best sense. Heavy-bodied, larger than an elk cow, with a long donkey-like tail, broad splayed hooves, and antlers that branch backwards — the main beam runs back over the shoulders instead of forward, which is unique among deer and reads as wrong the first time you see it. The Chinese name translates to something like the four-unlikes: the antlers of a stag, the neck of a camel, the hooves of a cow, the tail of a donkey, and none of the four animals entire.

They are water animals. In their native marshland they spent much of the year wading, and that instinct survives intact — you will find them at and in the stocked tanks on this property more reliably than anywhere else, particularly in heat. Hunting them is largely a matter of knowing which water they are using and being there early. They are not difficult to approach compared with an axis or a blackbuck, but they are large and heavy-boned, so bring a rifle that would satisfy you for elk and place the shot accordingly.