"I'm planning to establish another bigger one that must be far in the wilds," said 71-year-old Wang.

In the early 1960s he was the director of the local military office of Weichang County in the northern province of Hebei.

Weichang County, stretching north to Bashang in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and south to Chengde in Hebei, is known as the "home of the roe," with its abundant forests and numerous wild animals. It used to be the hunting grounds of the Qing court from the reign of Emperor Kangxi (1654-1722).

In the 1960s Weichang, some 450 kilometers east of Beijing, was a military frontline because of the tension between China and the then USSR. Wang led his civilian troops during their routine national service training across the mountains and out onto the grasslands.

"To train the sharpshooters I chose the running roes as our targets," Wang recalled. He once shot over 100 in one day.

Wang still remembers his first shot. "My hands were trembling while targeting a strong roebuck which had good brown fur and two big horns," he recalls. "I had been holding my gun for over 10 minutes as it stared at me unperturbed.

"After that first shot, whenever a roe saw me it would run away as quickly as possible," Wang said. "Perhaps they learnt to smell the gunpowder."

This shooting training continued until the mid 1970s when relations between the two countries normalized. But by then, the former "home of the roes" had lost its population.

Repaying the debt

In the early 1980s Wang had learnt much from the media about the threat of extinction looming over many species of wild animals. "I always feel guilty for those I killed," he said, still haunted by live target practices too many to number. "I feel shame whenever someone mentions the so-called honorable title 'expert marksman'," he said. "I made up my mind I must do something for the creatures."

Wang began to search for traces of wild roe. He usually trekked 10 kilometers a day in the mountains, particularly in late autumn and early winter, the traditional hunting season.

One day in 1987 when he was on a business trip and traveling by train to Inner Mongolia, Wang heard that a woman living in the remote Tiantaiyong Village had caught a roe. Wang raced to her home and saw a roe kid tied with her rear right leg bleeding.

"It seemed that I could feel the hurt," Wang recalled. He gave all the money he had on him, 200 yuan (US$24), to the woman and took the kid back home.

He treated its wounds and then gave it his bed. After several days, the little roe began to recover and Wang named it Jiaojiao, a name often used for a pretty girl in Chinese.

Every day Wang had to cycle more than 3 kilometers to buy goats milk to feed the kid. All the time, Wang was thinking "of finding her a mother in the woods."

When Jiaojiao recovered fully, Wang took her to the mountains, hoping to find a doe which would feed her.

After placing the kid by a tree, Wang hid in a nearby bush and began to bleat imitating a roe kid. After several days of trying his deer calls were answered and a doe approached the kid. But she ran away after sniffing and touching Jiaojiao. "She probably smelt something human and was frightened off," said Wang, who abandoned the idea of returning the kid to the wild.

Searching for a better way to raise the roe, Wang continued to frequent the mountains where roes might be found. When he did encounter any, he would watch and see what they chose to eat, and learn more about their habits. Armed with this knowledge he prepared a menu for Jiaojiao from different selections of grass and leaves. He also created a sort of grass powder as a dietary supplement for her.

A year on Jiaojiao had grown stronger weighing 30 kilograms. "She loved to be close to my wife and me, rubbing her head against us," said Wang. "When she felt happy she would jump with her rear feet lifted high. She became a member of our family."

But the time came when Wang realized it was time for Jiaojiao to find a mate. In the spring of 1988 he was told a villager in Yangepai had caught a roebuck. Wang went there and spent 1,000 yuan (US$120) to bring the creature back and named it Zhuangzhuang, meaning a strong boy in Chinese.

He built a new pen for the pair and a year later Jiaojiao gave birth to two kids - one male and one female.

Wang and his family were thrilled and he and his wife Li Guiyun resolved to put all their efforts into taking care of their growing roe family. "We treated her as our own daughter," said Li.

Ongoing rescue

"I felt a bit relieved after the success of rescuing Jiaojiao and Zhuangzhuang," Wang said. It also galvanized him to greater efforts to rescue other roe deer. Since those early days and the chance encounter with Jiaojiao he has continued to trek the mountains, forests and villages in search of injured or trapped roe. Over the years he has developed his own special remedies and treatment methods for helping injured animals.

He still remembers how he saved a strong roebuck. The roe was close to death when Wang found him. For seven days and nights he and his wife nursed the animal, but saw no sign of recovery. The roebuck refused to eat anything.

It came to the eighth day when it was snowing heavily. Wang found the roe licking the snow. He quickly mixed snow with bean powder and hand fed the roebuck. His patience paid off and the animal grew stronger and stronger, later becoming one of the studs.

Seeing the roebuck restored to health, Wang decided to set up his roe breeding and stud ranch at Bashang. He still continues to make forays into the wild on the lookout for does in need of rescue. He has also returned a number back to the wild.

Running free

In the early autumn of 1990 Wang decided to send away four strong ones, including Jiaojiao and Zhuangzhuang. "I starved them for two days, in the hope that they could quickly get used to the wild," Wang said. With tags on their ears they seemed quite excited when they entered the forest.

It was on top of the hill where Wang had taken his first shot a lifetime before that he released them. Two quickly disappeared into the depths of the forest, but Jiaojiao and Zhuangzhuang were reluctant to stray far from his side. They took a few steps and stopped. "They turned around and looked at me," said Wang. He waved his hand, signaling them to go ahead.

"They seemed to understand what I meant, and they began searching for fresh leaves," he said. He slipped away as quickly as possible.

"Although I had realized my wish of returning them to the wild, my happiness was mixed with sorrow," said Wang.

He endured a sleepless night when he got home, with the two roes running through his dreams. The next morning he opened the door half expecting to see them, but they were not there.

But on the third day he awoke early and heard something familiar. "I shouted to my wife 'it's her'," Wang recalled.

To their surprise, they found Jiaojiao and Zhuangzhuang wet with morning dew outside when they opened the door. The pair immediately came forward and pressed their heads against Wang and his wife.

"I couldn't help holding them tight," said Wang who gave up on the idea of returning them to the wild and to this day, 18 years on, they are still with him.

Wang has, however, succeeded in returning 21 roes to the wild since 1990.

Frustration

"To arouse public awareness about the need to protect wild animals is another crucial task," said Wang, who later found that some of the roes he released were killed by poachers.

Spring Festival 2000 was a bad time for Wang. He and his family were at a banquet to celebrate his mother-in-law's birthday when one of the guests announced they had caught a 50-kilogram roebuck. "My sixth sense told me it must be one of mine because wild ones are never over 40 kilograms," he recalls.

Wang rushed out to the courtyard and found the dead roe. "I almost fell to the ground when I saw the tag on its ear," he said, "I recognized it was Daming who I released a year before."

The incident was a body blow to Wang. Not least because he had pondered long about whether or not to release that doe.

Following that incident he decided to set about educating his neighbors and the community in general about his breeding program and the need to protect the dwindling numbers of wild roe deer. Since then he has shared his experiences to people in more than 10 cities and provinces across the country, and reared more than 400 roebuck studs. He has also published a 150,000-word introduction on how to breed wild roes in China, and which explores breeding methods.

"The wild ones," said Wang, his eyes gleaming with joy and a glint of redemption, "are coming back. I saw their traces in the forests while trekking in the mountains."

(China Daily April 13, 2005)