Schomburgk's deer inhabited swampy plains with long grass, cane, and shrubs in central Thailand, particularly in the Chao Phraya River valley near Bangkok.

Commercial production of rice for export began in the late-19th century in Thailand, leading to the loss of nearly all grassland and swamp areas on which this deer depended.

[3]The wild population of Schomburgk's deer is thought to have died out because of overhunting by 1932,[2] with the last captive individual, an animal living at a temple in Samut Sakhon, being killed in 1938 by a drunk man.

[5] Evidence for the continued survival of the Schomburgk's deer came in February of 1991 when Laurent Chazée, an agronomist with the United Nations, photographed a set of antlers on display in a Chinese medicine shop, located in the Phongsali province of Laos.

[7] Only one mounted specimen is known to exist, which currently resides in the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle in Paris, France, after living in a zoo there until 1868.