Water Deer Interaction with Humans - Folk Remedies

In its native range of China and Korea, the water deer is hunted not only for its meat but also for body parts that may be used in traditional medicine, although South Korean naturalist Junha Kim tells me that the practice is relatively restricted in the country:

"And sometimes the bodies of water deer hunted or killed in traffic accidents are used as herbal medicines. Which are known to be consumed personally by hunters and middle-aged and elderly men who are not confident in health; it is not commercially distributed. Naturally, the efficacy of the medicine has not been verified, and it is prohibited to commercially trade processed products by capturing wild animals without permission in this way under Korean laws. Even if it's a harmful animal."

In their 1999 paper to Mammal Review, however, Changman Won and Kimberley Smith suggest that the hunting of deer for food and traditional medicine has historically led to significant population declines on the Korean peninsula.

Intriguingly, while the word zhang has been used to mean "deer" and specifically refer to water deer in China, according to Chen Yun-Ju, in his Ph.D. thesis on the formation of medical knowledge in Song China, completed at the University of Oxford in 2015, it also translates to "miasma":

"Zhang in Song China typically referred to a range of disorders, or to a debilitating atmosphere, that were thought to be endemic in Lingnan 嶺 南 (literally, south of the Ling ranges), an area that is largely encompassed by the present-day Guangdong and Guangxi provinces, and were usually attributed to the heat (re 熱), dampness (shi 濕), and poison (du 毒) found in that environment."

This is a curious coincidence (?) because, in China, the curative apocrypha of water deer has deep roots and, in their 2007 paper to the Chinese Journal of Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine, Hua Shen and his colleagues note that, according to the Liang Dynasty and Tao Hongjing's famous "Physician Bilu", water deer bones cure impotence, and the marrow revives vitality. They also note that the skin can be used to make leather, while the milk apparently enhances disease resistance, improves fitness, prolongs life, and even increases beauty among the elderly. Most of this is, I believe, taken from Bencao gangmu (本 草 綱 目), in English the "Materia Medica", a compendium of traditional Chinese medicine, natural history and botany published in 1596. The compendium also notes that river deer bones can "delight the colour" (i.e., relieve fatigue) and dispel wind, while the milk slows aging and boosts the immune system whilst also 'warming and nourishing the five internal organs'. The milk in this case is not simply that taken from a lactating doe, however, but very specifically the semi-digested cheese-like lump of colostrum from the stomach of newborn fawns, known locally as naikuai (奶 块, "milk lump" in English) or zhāng bao (獐 宝, "deer treasure").

Naikuai has historically been used as a cure for digestive complaints, malnutrition and even tuberculosis in Chinese children for 300 to 400 years and, in their paper to Acta Theriologica Sinica, Helin Sheng and Houji Lu estimated that, even as recently as the late 1970s and early '80s, between 150 and 200 fawns were killed annually for this product. More recent data from Zhoushan, presented by Endi Zhang in his 2000 paper to Deer, suggested that the demand for naikuai had increased since the 1980s, at least in part thanks to some local newspapers exaggerating its properties. Of a total of 102 places investigated across 20 islands, 71 (almost 70%) reported significant poaching. In 1998, for example, two poachers were found to have caught 30 fawns in Zhoushan's Baiquan Town alone, while another 30 were caught in Beichan the following year. Similarly, in 1997, the Agriculture and Forestry Bureau of Dinghai District, Zhoushan, organized a law enforcement team to target poaching that, between 1997 and June 2000, had caught 69 poachers and confiscated rifles and leg traps. Eight hunting dogs were also seized, and interview feedback collected by Zhang suggested that specially trained hunting dogs were often used to locate fawns, mostly during June and usually in the morning. During the crackdown, 81 packets of naikuai were seized and 59 fawns confiscated.

Based on his study of Zhoushan, Endi Zhang calculated that the annual toll of naikuai on fawns in the region was about 1,500 animals, although in conversation with Arnold Cooke he mentioned that he hoped demand would now fall as it was primarily the older generation who believed in the properties.

Unfortunately, there are some clinical data that appear to corroborate the therapeutic properties of the deer treasure. In a 2007 paper to Zhejiang Preventative Medicine, Xiaoming Lou and colleagues noted that, rich in amino acids and various trace elements, naikuai has been clinically proven to promote digestion and absorption, thereby improving the growth and development of adolescents. In a subsequent paper to Modern Preventative Medicine the following year, Xia Yong and his co-workers point to a Chinese clinical study published in 2000 that showed how the milk mass taken from the glandular stomach of river deer fawns during lactation regulated both spleen and stomach function, promoting child development, and also reference an earlier study by their lab which found naikuai significantly increased the growth and development of weaned rats over their control group by stimulating gastric secretion and pepsin production. In their paper, the researchers note that some healthcare companies in Zhejiang sell water deer milk as a powder of "light yellow granules", the recommended oral dose for human children being four grams (0.14 oz.) per day.

More recently, in a 2000 paper to Pharmaceutical Practice, Dui-zhong Huang and his colleagues report on a clinical study that investigated the impact of zhāng bao on 60 infants suffering from anorexia and apparently found it to be highly successful (i.e., a 93% efficacy). Similarly, in 2014, Yumei Mei and Liang Zheng published the results of their naikuai experiments in Chinese Medicine Modern Distance Education of China, which suggested the substance was effective in the treatment, and even prevention, of precancerous stomach lesions in rats.

We do not currently know how many water deer are killed annually in China for naikuai, or whether there has been a waning in popularity in recent years, but my understanding is that the species is farmed in China at least in part to produce this product.