government’s directives, which strictly bans its hunting and use (Dang and Nguyen, undated). It is also
regarded as a Rank I key species in Wild Animal Protection Law of China ensuring afforded national
protection (Liu, 1998).
DISTRIBUTION
The Eld’s deer is limited to the tropical and subtropical region (93°06′–110°35′E, 11°10′–
25°41′N) of Asia. It is largely restricted to the Irrawaddy and lower Mekong valleys between Thailand
and Cambodia, with an isolated small population in the west in Manipur and lower to the south in the
east in Hainan Island, southern China (McShea et al., 2001). Eld’s deer is believed to have originated
via a land bridge from the Southeast Asian mainland and arrived in the Island of Java and Hainan
during the end of Pleistocene and early Holocene (18,000-8,500 years BP) when the sea level went
down below 85 m from the present mean sea level (Ginsburg et al., 1982; Bhumpakphan et al., 2004).
Although the primary forest type of most Eld’s deer populations is dry dipterocarp forest (McShea et al.,
2005) the fringe populations of this species occupy wetter ecosystems. Hainan’s population is found in
the tropical moist island in shrub forest (Zeng et al., 2005). Isolated populations of R. e. siamensis, both
in southern Laos (Round, 1998) and in Ang Trapeang Thmor Reservoir in north western Cambodia
inhabit marshy areas in conditions similar to those described by Lekagul and McNeely (1977) in relation
to extirpated deer in Thailand.
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