George Washington is givin credit for bringing over the first exotic animals and keeping them on his farm, but the Spanish and Russians did this allot earlier then Washington did with horses and hogs. Those were released into the wild, so the desticintion is that Washington kept the fallow deer on Mr Vernon as pets in a wildlife preserve.
In the early 1900's, several large ranches bought surplus animals from zoo's and released them onto their lands. Over time, some of them did very well. The animals from India tend to do the best, but there are other standouts like the Fallow Deer. Deer farming is done for meat and trophy hunting. A trophy fallow buck can sell for $2,000 on a hunting preserve. Anybody can buy fallow deer, and I've priced them at auction for just over $200 each as yearlings, on up to $500 for a decent buck. If they get out of the preserve, and thousands of them have, then they can be hunted year round with a legal Texas hunting license. The owner of those animals looses all rights to them when they leave his land.
One of my long term goals is to fence in 8 acres in the middle of my land and have three fallow deer bucks, three elk bulls and 5 to 6 axis deer bucks in there as an attraction to the RV Park. Just about any animal is available here, it's just like buying cattle or any other livestock.
While driving down to TXDon's place from here, we saw two preserves with Fallow deer on them. They are behind 8ft deer fences along the highway. Those were meat operations. There was also a hunting preserve that must have been several thousands of acres. In there, we saw a blackbuck antelope and what might have been a few red deer.
Back in California, where I'm from, there are several areas that you can go see them in the wild. Point Reyes, which is a fairly famous area for it's lighthouse just north of SF has a very large herd of fallow deer. For fun, we'd go there to take pictures of them and hike the trails. The Tule Elk there are also very impressive.
In Northern California, near the town of Willits, along highway 101, you can see them from time to time. I grew up being told by a neighbor that they were albino deer, but later I learned that they are just common fallow deer that are white. There are all sorts of resturants and hotels named after the white deer in that area.
Hurst also released quite a few on his ranch in San Simion. It's more famous for the home he built there, Hurst Castle, but in the hunting world, the exotics are more famous.
There are pockets of fallow deer all over the country, but those are just the ones I'm familiar with.
There are a few different species of fallow deer, but they all come in three color phases. White, chocolate and spotted. The white tend to have the largest antlers. The chocolate also have spots, but are a much darker color then the spotted fallow deer.
The pictures are from here. The fallow deer are in a 20 acre preserve and raised for meat, with the bigger bucks being sold to hunting ranches. There is another ranch that has a few hundred acres devoted to fallow deer production near that one, but it's harder to see the animals and get pictures. He has hundreds of does out in the open, but his breeder bucks are in a pasture that are hard to see.
Eddie
