您是否曾尝试过理清一棵随着分支越来越纠缠的家谱？新西兰的鹿也面临类似问题，而这一切始于1905年美国总统西奥多·罗斯福的一份礼物。2026年发表在《动物史》期刊上的研究中，瓦内萨·巴特曼解释说，这份礼物是一群wapiti，即另一种命名的驼鹿。研究指出，在整个20世纪，这些鹿最初被视为猎物动物，随后被视为生态威胁，最终成为农场牲畜。
Ever tried to untangle a family tree that got more and more knotted as it branched out? New Zealand’s deer have a similar problem, and it started with a gift from U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt in 1905. In a 2026 study published in Animal History, Vanessa Bateman explains that the gift was a group of wapiti, another name for elk. Over the course of the 20th century, these deer were seen first as game animals, then as an ecological threat, and finally as farm livestock, explains the study.
每一种标签的应用都因它们与红鹿的杂交而变得更加困难。一份随时间改变意义的礼物巴特曼的研究追溯了这些鹿在20世纪的历程。她通过档案记录、政府报告、口述历史和视觉资料追踪了人们对它们的反应。研究表明，这些动物并未长期保持单一角色。起初，它们被驯化为猎物。后来，它们被视为生态威胁。最后，有些被驯化为家畜。
Each of those labels was made harder to apply by their mixing with red deer.A gift that changed its meaning over timeBateman’s research follows the deer through the 20th century. She tracked how people responded to them using archival records, government reports, oral histories, and visual sources. The study shows that the animals did not keep one role for long. At first, they were acclimatized game. Later, they were treated as an ecological menace. Finally, some became domestic animals. Bateman also looks at the tools used along the way, including rifles, helicopters, tranquilizers, nets, and farms.
巴特曼还审视了过程中使用的工具，包括步枪、直升机、麻醉剂、网具和农场。她表示，这些工具不仅仅是用来控制鹿的。它们随着动物一起转变，并将鹿的行为纳入政府和商业体系之中。这个故事不仅仅是关于生物学的。它还涉及人们在不同时期如何评价动物。这些记录共同讲述了新西兰如何评价这些动物的悠久故事。
She says the tools did more than control the deer. They transformed with the animals, and tied deer behavior into government and commercial systems. This story is not simply about biology. It’s also about how people valued animals at different points in time. Together, the records tell a long story of how New Zealand valued these animals. How elk and red deer blended in FiordlandElk were not alone in the wild.
驼鹿与红鹿在峡湾地的融合驼鹿并非野外独居。巴切勒和麦克伦南在1977年发表于《新西兰生态学会论文集》的论文中报告称，红鹿和wapiti在峡湾国家公园的部分地区共存。研究人员检验了该混合种群的头骨测量数据。考利在1971年曾将这些动物划分为38%的红鹿、20%的杂种和42%的wapiti。巴切勒和麦克伦南采用不同方法重新检验了同样的头骨，并增加了更多样本。
Batcheler and McLennan, in their 1977 paper published in the Proceedings of the New Zealand Ecological Society, reported that red deer and wapiti co-existed in part of Fiordland National Park. The researchers looked at skull measurements from that mixed population. Caughley in 1971 had previously sorted the animals into 38% red deer, 20% hybrids, and 42% wapiti. Batcheler and McLennan reexamined the same skulls using different methods and adding more samples. The group, they found, was 8% red deer, 52% hybrids, and 40% wapiti.
研究结果显示，该种群中红鹿占8%，杂交种占52%，驼鹿则占40%。研究者指出，这种杂交现象主要是由于体型较大的驼鹿公鹿与红鹿杂交种及驼鹿的母鹿交配所致，这一过程使得绝大多数红鹿的基因都融入了杂交种群中。此外，驼鹿的繁殖期比红鹿早约两周，这一时间差很可能进一步巩固了驼鹿的繁殖优势。
The authors say the hybridization was mainly due to dominant wapiti bulls mating with females of red deer hybrids and wapiti. This brought most of the red deer into a hybrid gene pool. They also add that wapiti breed about two weeks earlier than red deer, which probably helped to cement that advantage.
为何这些杂交种难以归类？这些杂交种并未形成单一、整齐的群体。研究报告中描述了外形类似红鹿的杂交种以及外形类似驼鹿的杂交种，两者之间存在一系列过渡形态。即便经过细致测量，仍难以对它们进行准确分类。基于头骨特征划分的群体类型也与根据毛色、体型及其他外部特征所做的分类相吻合。研究者还发现，该地区的驼鹿种群整体健康状况较差。
Why the hybrids are so hard to labelThe hybrids did not form one tidy group. The paper describes red-like hybrids and wapiti-like hybrids, with a near continuum of forms between the two parent species. Even with careful measurement, they are difficult to sort. Their skull-based groups also corresponded to descriptions based on coat, size, and other external features. The authors also determined that the wapiti population in the area was in poor physical condition. Hunters were also in the picture.
猎人因素同样不可忽视。研究指出，经验丰富的猎人在捕杀红鹿及杂交种时具有高度选择性，但最终该种群仍以杂交种为主。这一结果说明，驼鹿公鹿在繁殖上的优势足以抵消猎人捕杀带来的影响。
The authors report that experienced hunters were very selective in culling red deer and hybrids, yet the population still ended up dominated by hybrids, This suggests that the wapiti bulls' mating advantage outweighed whatever hunters managed to cull. Bateman makes the broader point. She says hybridization blurred the line between wild and domestic, and between pest and resource.
贝特曼还提出了更为宏观的观点：杂交现象模糊了野生动物与家养动物、有害物种与可利用资源的界限。很难界定一只兼具驼鹿与红鹿特征的动物究竟是人们想要猎取的猎物、外来入侵物种，还是一种可利用的资源。这种界定上的模糊性也解释了为何不同时期人们对这类鹿类的态度存在显著差异。不过这两项研究均存在局限性：一项为历史分析，另一项则是20世纪70年代进行的头骨研究，两者均无法反映当前鹿群的实际情况。
It is difficult to say whether an animal that is part elk and part red deer is a game animal that people want to hunt, an invader, or a resource. That uncertainty helps to explain why the deer were treated so differently over time. Still, there are limitations to both studies. One is a historical analysis, the other a skull study from the 1970s, neither of which tells us what would happen to the deer today.
综合来看，它们共同揭示了1905年的一次偶然引入事件如何引发了长期存在的物种分类难题。
Together, they show how a single gift in 1905 led to a long-running classification problem.