A Checklist To The 8 Deer, Donkeys & Ponies Of Sri Lanka

1
THE CEYLON SPOTTED DEER
The Sri Lankan Axis Deer is an increasing vulnerable species, its preferred habitats - lowland forests, and shrub lands –shrinking, and with it the grasses, leaves, and fruit it lives on. Their numbers are now counted in just several thousands. They live in herds of up to one hundred, and are seen by leopards, bears, crocodile, 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.

2
THE HOG DEER
Seventy centimetres tall, with short legs, a predilection to whistle, fine antlers and dark brown fur, the Indian Hog Deer looks nothing like a pig but gains that interspecies appellation for its tendency to rush through the forest, head down. Stretching right across the grass lands of Sri Lanka and South and Southeast Asia, it is now classified as extremely vulnerable, its small herds shrinking in the face of habitat loss.

3
THE BARKING DEER
Carefree, with a propensity to eat almost anything, the Barking Deer is a cuddly irritant in jungle and on low hill estates, its numbers flourishing both here and 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, solidity, 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.

4
THE SRI LANKAN SPOTTED CHEVROTAIN
Barely twelve inches high, the Mouse Deer lives scattered in the forests of South & Southeast Asia. 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. Meantime, the miniscule creature has got on with life. In Sri Lanka, the species has become so evolved as to present scientists with the opportunity to award it full endemic status as the Sri Lankan Spotted Chevrotain.

5
THE SAMBAR DEER
Across Sri Lanka and India, the Sambar Deer claims gold as the largest and most impressive of all deer species although within Sri Lanka, the species has evolved still further and teeters on the edge of being declared endemic – as the Sri Lankan Sambar. It can be seen in herds on Horton Plains – but it is classified as extremely venerable. Typically one and half metres high (sometimes more), their herds consist of females with their fawns, which they usually produce yearly. The males 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 in size than the one alive today.

6
THE PONIES OF MANNAR
Strung out to the west of Jaffna in the Palk Strait is the tiny coral island of Delft, bared fifty square mile and home to less than five thousand people. And five hundred wild ponies- the Mannar Pony to be exact. Dotted with Baobab trees, archaeological marvels from 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 colonies in the East, 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.

7
SRI LANKAN DONKEYS
Sri Lanka’s diminishing herds of feral donkeys are found mostly in Mannar, Talaimannar and Puttalam, 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 cargos inland. The species that lives here is said to be a direct decadent of the Nubian African Wild Ass, now extinct in its native Ethiopia and Sudan. Extinction also faces it in Sri Lanka, its habitat every diminishing. There are said to be under 3,000 still alive, through a wonderful charity, Bridging Lanka, has stepped in to try and nurse them back to happier times.

8
THE GAUR,
Once common throughout South and Southeast Asia, the Gaur, or Indian bison, is moving inexorably towards extinction, with a just 21,000 mature specimens still living. Related to yaks and water buffalo, they are the largest of all wild cattle and out ranked in size by other land mammals only by elephants, rhinoceros, and hippopotamus. The Ceylon Gaur is a distinct sub species 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.