Bactrian Wapiti
Cervus elaphus bactrianus

Bukhara deer (also known as Bactrian wapiti) are a sub-species of Central Asian red deer native to Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, living mainly in forests and riparian woodlands surrounded by deserts. 

They are browsers - feeding on grass, herbs, leaves, buds, shoots and bark. For the majority of the year, they live in single sex groups. Males and females come together in the breeding season and the stags perform a mating ritual called a rut in order to attract the hinds.  If a stag is successful in attracting hinds he then has to defend them from other stags that may try and tempt them away.  Stags will challenge each other by bellowing and unless one backs down, they will charge and lock antlers. Only adult stags have antlers, which are shed and regrown every year.

At the end of the breeding season, the deer return to their separate single sex groups until the following season. After nine months, the hinds give birth to a single fawn, occasionally twins.  Newborn fawns are left for long periods in thick vegetation with their mothers returning only to feed them.

In the past, the Bukhara deer was known in central Asia as “Hangul” (the king’s flower) and the deer were under special protection of the feudal kings. Recently with the break up of the Soviet Union however, the deer came under pressure from illegal hunting, habitat destruction and the artificial regulation of the rivers along which they lived. By 1999, the Bukhara deer was one of the most endangered mammals in the world with no more than 400 individuals left. Thankfully the population now stands around 1000 following a concerted effort by the Worldwide Fund for Wildlife and the UN Environment Programme’s Convention on Migratory Species. They are working hard to link up scattered populations of the deer by providing safe corridors and by moving deer into protected areas.