The Return of Hangul

The Bukhara Deer or the Hangul is endemic for Central Asia. In Kazakhstan, it mainly lived in the lower streams of the Syr Darya River and in the floodplain of the Ili River.  An authentic recording of encountering a Hangul in Southern Balkhash Area dates back to 1902.  In the Syr Darya Basin, the last representative of the species was killed in 1956.  In the 60’s of the last century, the Hangul population passed through a bottleneck – there were slightly over 100 animals left in the Tigrovaya Balka Nature Reserve in Tajikistan and Zeravshan District in Uzbekistan.

The changing habitat, the cutting of riparian forests, the competition for food with livestock as well as excessive hunting left no chances of survival for the rare species.  It was already impossible to save the Hanguls without the special efforts on behalf of humans.