Urban Wildlife Abecedarium: D Deer
Behind the cut is another chapter in a series of articles called "Invasion of the Megafauna," which will be the featured piece in the next Urban Pantheist. It also serves as my entry for "D," in my alphabetical series of assignments. Please assign me a topic for "E," for next week.
Deer
Deer are graceful plant-eating mammals, ranging in size from the tiny (18" tall, 25lb) muntjac of Asia to the horse-sized (up to 1500 lbs or more) moose of North America and northern Eurasia. They occur on all continents except Antarctica, and have been introduced to hundreds of islands around the world. They are shy animals that depend on their acute senses to alert them of danger. They are popular game with human hunters. All deer are prey animals in those places that they are native, usually supporting the largest mammalian predator species. One imagines that their large size, shyness, and reliance on a variety of plant food sources make them poor candidates for urban wildlife.
However, that is exactly what they are becoming, in cities all over the globe. Their appearance in densely populated human settlements is still unusual enough to be newsworthy when it happens. But it is happening more and more frequently. White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) are commonly encountered in the densely suburban east and south of the U.S., while their close relative the black-tailed or mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) often wander into the suburbs of western North America. Where the range of moose (Alces alces) and human overlap, the two larger species sometimes comes into territory claimed by the smaller.
Great Britain has no fewer than six species of deer, two of which are more or less native. Hunting grounds there have been stocked and restocked with deer from various places for centuries. Introduction of alien deer species to the British Isles may have began as early as the Roman era, and was certainly occurring by the time of the Norman Conquest. The last deer species to be introduced came from Asia, including a form of muntjac: the Reeves' muntjac (Muntiacus reevesi), a 30-40 lb deer from China. Given the small size and long period of development of Britain, it's hardly surprising that some of their deer have come to live in urban areas.
They don't hear the sound of tiny cloven hooves tapping on the paving stones in Trafalgar Square, but anywhere where there is enough shrubbery to hide a fox is ample cover for muntjac. Some London neighborhoods have generous "back gardens," pieces of land behind a residence, where North Americans get their idea of a "yard." These parcels are homes to decreasing amounts of native songbirds, but increasing amounts of introduced American Gray Squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis), cats and foxes. It seems that muntjac deer will join this accidental community of urban animals.
In North America, our deer and moose are emblematic of the wild. Without wolves or mountain lions (greatly reduced or eliminated from settled parts of the continent) to put pressure on them, our deer species have exploded in numbers. Their "intrusion" into cities is inevitable, when the intrusion of cities into former farms and woods is so out of control. Each year in New England, there are one or two news stories of a "confused" moose sighted close enough to human settlements to cause alarm. This past spring a young moose found its way into the endless suburbs between Boston and Worcester. Its appearance was greeted with media hysteria resembling the coverage of a jailbreak. Thankfully for the animal, it disappeared silently into the scant corridors of wood before a human solution to its "problem" had to be found.
Bartalucci, A. and B. Weinstein, T. Dewey. 2000. "Alces alces" (On-line), Animal Diversity Web. Accessed August 30, 2004 at http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Alces_alces.html.
The British Deer Society. "Muntjac." http://www.bds.org.uk/PageL3.asp?PageName=Education&PageNameL2=Species&PageNameL3=Muntjac (Also "Chinese Water Deer," "Fallow Deer," "Red Deer," "Roe Deer," "Sika Deer.)"
Hagg, Guy. "Urban Gorillas, now Urban Deer. (Parts 1 and 2)"
http://www.deer-uk.com/urban_deer.htm
McCarthy, Michael. "Bambi in the Back Garden: Deer are the New Urban Invaders" August 16, 2004.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=551881
Wildlife Conservation Society. "World's Smallest Deer Species Discovered By Wildlife Conservation Society."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/07/990706070307.htm
cross-posted to zine_scene
Deer
Deer are graceful plant-eating mammals, ranging in size from the tiny (18" tall, 25lb) muntjac of Asia to the horse-sized (up to 1500 lbs or more) moose of North America and northern Eurasia. They occur on all continents except Antarctica, and have been introduced to hundreds of islands around the world. They are shy animals that depend on their acute senses to alert them of danger. They are popular game with human hunters. All deer are prey animals in those places that they are native, usually supporting the largest mammalian predator species. One imagines that their large size, shyness, and reliance on a variety of plant food sources make them poor candidates for urban wildlife.
However, that is exactly what they are becoming, in cities all over the globe. Their appearance in densely populated human settlements is still unusual enough to be newsworthy when it happens. But it is happening more and more frequently. White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) are commonly encountered in the densely suburban east and south of the U.S., while their close relative the black-tailed or mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) often wander into the suburbs of western North America. Where the range of moose (Alces alces) and human overlap, the two larger species sometimes comes into territory claimed by the smaller.
Great Britain has no fewer than six species of deer, two of which are more or less native. Hunting grounds there have been stocked and restocked with deer from various places for centuries. Introduction of alien deer species to the British Isles may have began as early as the Roman era, and was certainly occurring by the time of the Norman Conquest. The last deer species to be introduced came from Asia, including a form of muntjac: the Reeves' muntjac (Muntiacus reevesi), a 30-40 lb deer from China. Given the small size and long period of development of Britain, it's hardly surprising that some of their deer have come to live in urban areas.
They don't hear the sound of tiny cloven hooves tapping on the paving stones in Trafalgar Square, but anywhere where there is enough shrubbery to hide a fox is ample cover for muntjac. Some London neighborhoods have generous "back gardens," pieces of land behind a residence, where North Americans get their idea of a "yard." These parcels are homes to decreasing amounts of native songbirds, but increasing amounts of introduced American Gray Squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis), cats and foxes. It seems that muntjac deer will join this accidental community of urban animals.
In North America, our deer and moose are emblematic of the wild. Without wolves or mountain lions (greatly reduced or eliminated from settled parts of the continent) to put pressure on them, our deer species have exploded in numbers. Their "intrusion" into cities is inevitable, when the intrusion of cities into former farms and woods is so out of control. Each year in New England, there are one or two news stories of a "confused" moose sighted close enough to human settlements to cause alarm. This past spring a young moose found its way into the endless suburbs between Boston and Worcester. Its appearance was greeted with media hysteria resembling the coverage of a jailbreak. Thankfully for the animal, it disappeared silently into the scant corridors of wood before a human solution to its "problem" had to be found.
Bartalucci, A. and B. Weinstein, T. Dewey. 2000. "Alces alces" (On-line), Animal Diversity Web. Accessed August 30, 2004 at http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Alces_alces.html.
The British Deer Society. "Muntjac." http://www.bds.org.uk/PageL3.asp?PageName=Education&PageNameL2=Species&PageNameL3=Muntjac (Also "Chinese Water Deer," "Fallow Deer," "Red Deer," "Roe Deer," "Sika Deer.)"
Hagg, Guy. "Urban Gorillas, now Urban Deer. (Parts 1 and 2)"
http://www.deer-uk.com/urban_deer.htm
McCarthy, Michael. "Bambi in the Back Garden: Deer are the New Urban Invaders" August 16, 2004.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=551881
Wildlife Conservation Society. "World's Smallest Deer Species Discovered By Wildlife Conservation Society."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/07/990706070307.htm
cross-posted to zine_scene