Ciervo Hills

Ciervo Hills, located on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, northwest of Cantua, is named for the large herd of ciervo, red deer, or Tule elk (elaphus nannodes), that once ran in the San Joaquin Valley and Ciervo Hills before their predation by European hunters. The Tule elk is the smallest elk breed in North America. This animal was well adapted to the arid semi-desert conditions of the San Joaquin Valley and west side foothills. Instinct taught this animal to fear mountain lion and wolves, not hunters with rifles, so the animals were easy targets for Spanish explorers and gold prospectors. Their great number, ease of killing, and the voracious appetite of the gold-rush population brought this species to edge of extinction. By 1854 the Tule elk were nearly gone and by 1885 there were only 28 remaining in California. According to Wallace Elliott's History of Fresno County California, this area teamed with elk and other game in the early 1800s:

Elk were here in great numbers, but we believe that they were about the first animals to take fright at civilization and leave. They were mercilessly killed by hunters, killed not for their flesh, but for the fun of the killing. As early as 1854 the elk were pretty much all cleared out or had gone off.