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The show that explores what makes Sri Lanka Sri Lankan.
Deer Friends I On Safari with Sri Lanka's Deer, Ponies & Donkeys
To have a hoof in Sri Lanka is a privilege given to just a handful of species. But what are they, and where might you find them?
Deer abound across Sri Lanka; some, like the Ceylon Spotted Deer, are increasingly vulnerable to poachers and habitat loss; others – like the Barking Deer – are flourishing and pose little concern to the scientists who maintain the Red List of Threatened Species. Two species are considered endemic to the island – the Ceylon Spotted Deer, the Sri Lankan Spotted Chevrotain, with the Sri Lankan Sambar Deer the subject of mild debate among patriotic environmentalists trying to assess if it is so significantly more evolved as to present nature with what amounts to a new subspecies unique to the island. The remaining species found in Sri Lanka are also found across South and Southeast India – the Hog Deer and the Barkling Deer. Joining these quadrupeds are an extraordinary herd of feral ponies, abandoned by departing colonists, and a pack of wild donkeys, descendants of beasts brought to the island by ancient traders.
Troubled by the sheer lack of scientific information about the behaviour of the Ceylon Spotted Deer, the Department of Zoology at Sri Lanka’s Eastern University conducted a detailed study of a particular population in Trincomalee. After months of observation, they concluded, reassuringly, that “their main activities were feeding and play.” Scientists are much divided on the subject of animal play, and tortured monographs have been written attempting to pin down the very concept of animal play. To some, it is merely an evolutionary byproduct; others claim it ensures animals teach one another about fairness and consequences. That the Sri Lankan Axis Deer should be minded to play at all is encouraging for it is an increasingly vulnerable species, its preferred habitats - lowland forests, and shrub lands –are shrinking, and with it the grasses, leaves, and fruit it lives on. Their numbers are now counted in the thousands. They live in herds of up to one hundred and are seen by leopards, bears, crocodiles, jackals, and hungry villagers as living supermarkets of fresh meat. Standing up to a hundred centimetres high, their delicately white spotted fawn coats present them as everything a perfect deer ought to be, as is appropriate for an animal that is part of the island’s select few endemic mammals.
The Mouse Deer, or Sri Lankan Spotted Chevrotain, has evolved so dramatically that it presents scientists with the opportunity to grant it full endemic status. Barely twelve inches high, it lives scattered in the forests of South & Southeast Asia. The Sri Lankan variant mostly sticks to the dry zones, especially Wilpattu, Udawalawa, and Sigiriya. It is tiny, gorgeous, even-toed and, unless you are a plant, entirely harmless– although popular superstition adds the caveat that a man who gets scratched by the hind foot of one will develop leprosy. This has yet to be verified by scientists.
Tiny too is the Hog Deer – barely seventy centimetres tall. It has short legs, a predilection for whistling, fine antlers, and dark brown fur. It actually looks nothing like a pig but gains that interspecies appellation for its tendency to rush through the forest, head down like one of the racing pigs at Bob Hale Racing Stables in far-off Michigan. Stretching across the grasslands of Sri Lanka and South and Southeast Asia, it is now classified as highly vulnerable, with its small herds shrinking amid habitat loss.
Less threatened is the Indian Muntjak or Barking Deer. Carefree and with a propensity to eat almost anything, the Barking Deer is a cuddly irritant in the jungle and on low-hill estates, its numbers flourishing across South and Southeast Asia. It grows to around sixty centimetres in height and is covered in reddish brown fur and, for males, throws in a modest set of antlers. Shy, solid, rarely seen in numbers more than two, it gets its name for the dog-barking sound it makes when alarmed. It is a modest, if reliable breeder, with pregnancies lasting six months after which one or, occasionally, two pups are born.
But among the island deer, the Sambar Deer claims the title of the largest and most impressive of the several deer species with which it shares genes. Within Sri Lanka, the species has evolved further and teeters on the edge of being declared endemic, as the Sri Lankan Sambar (Rusa unicolour). Much mistaken for an elk by early British colonists eager to shoot it, it can be seen in herds in places like Horton Plains – but it is classified as highly vulnerable all the same. It is a tempting target for poachers stocking up on game meat to sell, and the pressures on its grassland habitats are not getting any easier. Typically one and a half metres high (sometimes more), their herds consist of females with their fawns, which they usually produce yearly. The males, like men with sheds who have taken the designation to extremes, prefer to live alone - except when the mating urge overcomes them. Fossil records from tens of thousands of years earlier show the existence of a now-extinct ancestor, the Muva Sinhaleya, a species of Sambur smaller than the one alive today.
Distant relations of a sort are the Ponies of Mannar. Strung out to the west of Jaffna in the Palk Strait is the tiny coral island of Delft, covering fifty square miles and home to less than five thousand people—and five hundred wild ponies. Dotted with Baobab trees, archaeological marvels spanning ancient to colonial times, and abundant wildlife, Delft has become the last refuge for the Sri Lankan Wild Pony, the direct descendant of the ponies exported to the island by the Portuguese and Dutch from Europe and their East Asian colonies, to provide basic transportation. Left behind at Independence, and superseded by cars and lorries, they have carved out a fringe existence on the hot, dry island, fighting off as best they can dehydration and occasional starvation. The Wildlife Department has since offered them greater protection. Still, if there are any deep-pocketed millionaires out there dissatisfied by the sight of the likely heirs, the wild ponies of Delft offer a much more attractive option for legacies and reputational garnishing.
No less threatened are Sri Lanka’s diminishing herds of feral donkeys. Found mainly in Mannar, Talaimannar and Puttalam, they are descendants of equine immigrants that entered the great port of Maathottam near Mannar - once the shipping gateway to the ancient Anuradhapura Kingdom. Arab traders were probably most responsible for importing the beasts to carry their cargoes inland. The species that lives here is said to be a direct descendant of the Nubian African Wild Ass, now extinct in its native Ethiopia and Sudan. Extinction also faces it in Sri Lanka, where its habitat is diminishing by the day, and hungry villagers occasionally help themselves to what will become tomorrow’s stew. There are said to be fewer than 3,000 still alive, and a fantastic charity, Bridging Lanka, has stepped in to try to nurse them back to happier times.
The last of the island’s deer-like beasts is the Gaur, or Indian Bison. Once common throughout South and Southeast Asia, the Gaur is moving inexorably towards extinction, with just 21,000 mature individuals remaining. Related to yaks and water buffalo, they are the largest of all wild cattle and are outranked in size only by elephants, rhinoceroses, and hippopotamuses among land mammals. The Ceylon Gaur (Bibos Sinhaleyus Deraniyagala) is a distinct subspecies that used to be found in Sri Lanka but was last spotted by British adventurers in 1681 in the menagerie of King Rajasinghe II of Kandy – though the Sri Lankan government recently proposed to its Indian counterpart that they send half a dozen gaur to the island as part of a reintroduction programme.
That was a production written and recorded by David Swarbrick at The Ceylon Press, based in the jungle north of Kandy, at The Flame Tree Estate & Hotel, and set up to tell the story of Sri Lanka.