By Wilma Young
Deer?
“Don’t those little deer ever get any bigger?”
No. Those little deer-like animals are really Asian elk known as sikas.
The sikas range over the entire refuge but a snail group is frequently seen near the administration building hoping for a treat from a visitor.
How can you be sure it’s a sika and not a white tailed deer? The trade mark of the sika is the bright white shield on its rump… a powder-puff behind. The white-tailed deer has a brown tail with a white underside, this he raises like a flag when alarmed.
Next question: where did the sikas cone from? They came from Asia originally. On this coast we have Clemment Henry of Cambridge, Maryland to thank tor the sikas’ introduction to the Eastern Shore. He brought a few here in the early nineteen hundreds and apparently kept then as pets. They multiplied and in 1916 he released some of then on Janes Island, establishing a population in Dorchester County.
In 1920 Dr. Charles Law of Berlin, Maryland bought five of the snail elk from “a man in Cambridge” according to the record. We’re guessing that the man was Clemment Henry. During the period of Law’s ownership three young were born and one of the original males died. A boy scout troop was said to have released some here in the nineteen twenties. That story had not been confirmed until 1992, at which tine Larry Points, Chief of Interpretation at Assateague National Seashore, interviewed an 82 year old man who had been in that boy scout troop in Ocean City, Maryland.
Owen Mumford on September 30th, 1992, told Larry Points that his scout leader, a Methodist minister whom he calls “Preacher Truitt” went “somewhere in Delaware” to acquire some sikas. He recalls that Truitt went to Wilmington or Dover, but it may well have been to Cambridge or Berlin, Maryland.
They had about a dozen sikas, Mr. Mumford recalls. He believes there were 10 females and two males. These animals were taken by the scouts to the boardwalk in Ocean City, Maryland and confined under the old pier. The scouts charged the public to look at the sikas…25 cents for adults and 15 cents for children. That summer the scouts raised $700 showing the sikas and took a trip on the proceeds. Business apparently slacked off but the expense of feeding the animals continued so the leader and some of the boys in the troop, including Owen Mumford, took the sikas to Assateague Island and released them “on some flat lands”. Larry Points suggests that this may have been at “Fox Levels”. Mr. Mumford was between 10 and 14 at the time so the release must have been between 1920 and 1924. Later on “a man from Berlin” released more. Mr. Mumford believes seven to nine animals were released then and he also believes it was for the purpose of hunting them.
They are exotics, not native to the area, and so they have no natural enemies; no predators who fancy young elk. The wolves and cougars are long since gone from this area.
The herd on James Island suffered from over population, their numbers exceeding the food supply of the island habitat. A die-off occured in 1957 with 161 sikas dying in just one winter.
We have no exact census of the sikas at Chincoteague National Wildlife efuge, but the estimate is slightly less than one thousand.
The white tails are largely browsing animals, eating tender shoots of trees and shrubs. Sikas are both grazers and browsers.
In Japan sikas were once hunted for their antlers. The hunt was so extensive that the sikas neared extinction. Today the Japanese protect them as a national treasure. In Russia the population was once so large that the government considered re-establishing the wolf population to keep the sikas in check.
In some countries sikas are raised domestically for their antlers. The velvet, which is the soft furry skin on the growing antlers is scraped off and ground up to make a tonic. Ten injections are given the patient as a general stimulant.
You may encounter sikas in petting zoos around this country.
What sounds do they make? They’re quiet animals most of the time.
During mating they make a bugling sound but a whistling sound is used as an alarm signal.
Here in the refuge they usually feed at night tine, spending their days loafing in the greenbrier thickets. The few around headquarters seem to feed during the day but that’s because they’ve grown accustomed to begging from visitors. They are so appealing that even the most blase’ visitor is tempted to feed them. Please don’t give in to temptation.
There’s a considerable size difference too – sikas are two or two and a half feet at the shoulder, weighing about 60 to 80 pounds – little guys. The white tails may reach three and a half feet at the shoulder and in some areas may weigh as much as 250 pounds. The white tails on the refuge may reach only 140 pounds because their food supply is sparse here on a barrier island.
The antlers are decidedly different as well: the sikas’ slanting backward while the white tails’ antlers have a forward beam.The coloring is also distinctive as the sikas are dark brown with lighter spots on either side of their back bones and these spots may remain throughout the animal’s life. Their winter coat is darker, white tail deer are spotted when young but as adults are tan or reddish brown in summer, grey brown in winter. They’re decorated with white on the belly and throat and have nose bands and eye rings of white as well as white linings in their ears.
About the writer:
Wilma Young served as a senior volunteer at several national parks, coming to the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge three times.
Her last stay at the Chincoteague refuge was just before her 80th birthday in 1997-98. On this third stay she served as an environmental education teacher for the Chincoteague Natural History Association. As a volunteer in her first two summers, along with the various duties she was given, Wilma found time to write. She spent hours reading about Chincoteague history and conducting research in the libraries. Some of her articles later found their way onto the Refuge web site, some were published in our local newspapers and some were used as trail guides for other volunteers. Today, at the age of 89, Wilma is as intensly interested in protecting our planet as she ever was. She can talk non-stop about the ways we humans have found to cause harm to our environment. She is passionate about things most people never take the time to learn. Years ago she wrote a story for her granddaughter, explaining why she often wasn’t home. “Every living thing depends on other living things and although we know a lot of the connections, we don’t know them all.” In explaining her work with the Refuge to her granddaughter, Wilma wrote, “…I help report the numbers on the goose collars…I answer questions our visitors have about all the wild creatures…I notify the biologists of any reports of unusual sightings of sick animal or creatures caught in nets…sometimes I pick up trash on the beach…I wander the trails, answering more quesitons…and best of all I look up a lot of stuff then write about it to help people understand how much we all need each other.” It is hard to find the words to describe this caring, kind and concerned grandmother. But her precise and accurate writing speaks for itself. We are pleased to publish her work in Wild Pony Tales. — Robert Boswell, publisher.