Point Reyes Light - August 26, 2004

Rancher proposes raising fallow deer

By Jacob Resneck

While the Point Reyes National Seashore decides what to do about its growing population of non-native fallow and axis deer, a West Marin rancher has proposed raising fallow deer as exotic venison for restaurants.

Manka’s Inverness Lodge and Restaurant occasionally serves wild fallow and axis venison purchased from a farm in Texas, and Steve Doughty of Point Reyes Station would like to raise fallow deer on his and his wife Sharon’s ranch north of town.

The National Seashore is again trying to come up with a plan for managing its more than 1,000 non-native fallow and axis deer, who share the park with cows, native blacktail deer, and semi-native tule elk.

After the original tule elk herd – possibly the largest herd of elk in the world, according to historian Jack Mason – was hunted to death in the 1860s, tule elk were reintroduced in the park in 1978. As with the fallow and axis deer, managing the size of a rapidly growing elk herd has become a headache for the Park Service, which has tried giving them contraceptives and moving some of them to Limantour. As for the fallow and axis deer, the Park Service in the past simply shot them, but the shooting for the time being has ended.

Fallow deer from Near East

Fallow deer, which originated in the Near East, and axis deer, which originated in India and Sri Lanka, were introduced to Point Reyes in the 1940s by an Inverness rancher, Doc Ottinger, who were given them as surplus from the San Francisco Zoo. Ottinger set the deer loose on his ranch for his friends and him to hunt.

The hunting kept the size of the fallow and axis herds in check, but when the Park Service took over Point Reyes in 1965, hunting was banned and the two herds began to grow.

Doughty’s proposal is to take some of the park’s fallow deer and raise them on his 800-acre ranch for venison. "We’re really trying to diversify and keep our ranches viable," Doughty said. "We’ve been bantering the idea around for a year or so."

Fallow deer, the only deer which legally can be raised as commercial venison, fetch as much as $2,500 a head on the open market.

Compete with blacktail

National Seashore Supt. Don Neubacher confirmed, "Yes, the exotic deer are expanding rapidly. They have a real-high productivity rate and are displacing the blacktail deer," he said, leading the National Seashore to formulate a plan for managing the deer population.

"If you let them continue as they are now, do you want them all around Marin and Central California? There will be some tough decisions as we go down the road."

National Seashore biologist Natalie Gates cited a study in the 1970s which found non-native deer compete with livestock and native deer species for food, suppressing the native deer to 75 percent of their potential. Their impact may have worsened since the study was done, Gates said, because fallow deer now number more than 800 compared to 300 when the original study was done.

Park to weigh options

Neubacher said that while Doughty’s proposal has merit, the National Seashore will have to weigh a variety of options before considering any action.

"We can cull them, contracept them, move them or even do nothing," he said, noting that the management plan will not be ready for another six months.

Doughty said that if the National Seashore were to agree to allow him to take the fallow deer population, he would need permits from the state Department of Fish and Game which regulates commercial venison.

He said that aside from the health and wildlife issues to be considered, a sturdy fence would need to be built to contain the deer. The rancher estimated it would take about five years to get a deer-raising operation "up and running."

"I’m just trying to keep the market here going rather than have to use the frozen venison from Australia," he said.

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