For two decades, Nebraska’s Sophia Perdikaris has been helping decipher the origins and global distribution of fallow deer.
An environmental archaeologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Perdikaris maintains a research station on the Caribbean island of Barbuda where, despite the species’ status as national animal and cultural emblem, the fallow deer population could face extinction as a result of over-hunting and massive environmental destruction caused by Hurricane Irma in 2017.