Hog deer determined to survive

The Hog Deer is a determined survivor. He has survived in places where his larger cousins have not.

Now his one-time hunters are working for his salvation and his future looks better than ever, even if they are only developing his numbers so they can kill them.

Axis porcinus is the formal name of the little deer that we see in the Lakes National Park and in a few other spots along the coast, not much bigger than a large dog, and gently shy.

The first Hog Deer in Victoria were those released by the well-meaning but ill-informed group, the Acclimatisation Society.

This group left us such legacies as Indian Mynahs, rabbits, starlings, blackbirds and foxes.

About the only positive thing they achieved, in the long run, was the setting-up of the Melbourne Zoo.

This group released eight Hog Deer near Gembrook in about 1870 and there were other releases elsewhere in Gippsland, and in northern Victoria.

Other deer they introduced were Fallow Deer and Red Deer from Europe and Sambur Deer in smaller numbers from Asia. There were even smaller releases of Chital and Rusa Deer.

These last two did not do well in Victoria and it seems that the Chital, at least, is no longer with us.

The surprising thing about these introductions of foreign species is that they do not seem to have caused too great a damage, unlike so many other things the acclimatisation people brought in.

There are Red Deer in reasonable numbers in the hills that form the northern walls of Gippsland. These are the deer that provide the impressive antlers once to be seen in any country hotel.

The deer which have done best in Gippsland, though, are the little Hog Deer. They are not large. A full-grown stag may stand only about three quarters of a metre high at the shoulder, or even less.

His weight would be around 45-50 kilograms. Hinds are usually about 10 kilograms less and five or six centimetres lower. They certainly lack the majestic appearance of the Red Deer or the Sambur, but they do have a certain grace.

The name comes from the 'hog-backed' appearance of the somewhat stocky adults.

They are sometimes called Japanese Hog Deer but their native lands were north-east India, Assam and parts of Burma. Assam is part of Eastern India, just below the Himalayas.

There is a record of Hog Deer being released at Cape Liptrap in 1886 and this release was apparently very successful, though I do not know who was responsible for it.

By the turn of the century, only 34 years later, there were colonies of Hog Deer all along the coast of Gippsland from Western Port to the Gippsland Lakes.

Now the most likely place to see one (and even the people who hunt them do not see many) are in the Lakes and Wilson Promontory National Park and the islands of Corner Inlet.

Snake Island and Little Snake Island, with a total of something like 6000 hectares are a State Faunal Reserve administered by Victorian wildlife officers. Snake Island, though, has a Game Reserve of about 1800 hectares operated by a semi-private organisation called the Para Park Co-operative Game Reserve Ltd.. There are other, smaller herds in isolated pockets along the coastline.

I spent a long time looking for them in the Lakes National Park before I saw any. They are better at hiding than I am at finding. The Tarwin River, lower down, is supposed to support a herd, too.

They are usually found in swampy country with a good cover of ti-tree forest.

There are still a good number of them on Wilson Promontory but it is harder to see them than it once was. The herds around Tidal River and Mount Oberon have 'gone bush' and are only rarely seen by park rangers and by bushwalkers. There are still a few, I believe, on the 'hook' of the Promontory around Mt Hunter and Mt Roundback.

Like most deer, the male grows antlers but these are singularly unimpressive, having only three points on each antler and reaching a maximum length of about 45 centimetres, usually somewhat less.

Calves (faun is not, correctly speaking, the right word) are born all year round, though most are dropped in Spring.

They have the spots worn by Bambi and her Disneyland brethren but these fade after about three months and then the animal is then a uniform mid-brown colour all over.

The calves are suckled for the first month and then begin to graze, following the hind (mum) for a few months more.

Hog Deer do not travel in herds, though they are sometimes seen in mobs of a dozen or so, It seems likely that mating is a semi-permanent thing with stag and hind remaining together throughout the year.

Why have the Hog Deer survived so well in in settled country, where other deer species have not done so well? The answer might well be that they do not compete for food with many other animals.

The type of country they like is of little use to man, except those who sell drained swamps by the quarter-acre.

They certainly eat grass but they include a fair amount of shrubbery in their diet. One bush they like is the Sydney Golden Wattle (Acacia longifolia). This grows abundantly and recovers quickly so there is rarely any shortage of food.

They do not compete with kangaroos and wallabies to any great extent and the three species have been able to coexist in reasonable numbers in the same shared areas.

Researchers have not found the Hog Der does any great damage to the landscape, though research is still continuing.

The Para Park Co-op is assisting this research greatly, and they might well establish the fact that these little animals are actually a valuable resource. As a sporting animal for shooters they might have great recreational value, and that has a commercial impact.

They also have an aesthetic value and it is just possible that in the future they might be a useful source of protein despite their small size.

We don't have the problems caused by exploding deer populations in New Zealand except for the Red Deer in the Dandenongs area, which are a traffic hazard and which can wreck a garden overnight.

We should not be too hasty in letting these little blokes die out. The forests that were their homes have been largely cleared in their homelands and the Hog Deer could become extinct in the countries from which it came.

At the same time they are not 'native' and many people would say they have no right to live in national parks.

They are a shy and retiring little animal doing no harm and adding a little something to Gippsland. Let's just hope that mankind does as little harm to the Hog Deer as the Hog Deer does to mankind.