Enlight me about the different exotic big game animals roaming free in the States ???
I'm asking about free range animals..

I know you have axis and some nilgai but what about mouflons, blackbucks, audad, etc....??

There are good populations of them out of high fences???

Do locals hunters hunt them?

L

Lower Eastern Shore of Maryland has had free ranging sika deer since the 1920s.Heck,most interest is from out-of-staters.I guess it's a close by,but still exotic thing.The state basically tried to eradicate them in the 70s,but it didn't work.Now,they are more tightly managed,as there is a lot of non-resident interest (and non-resident $$$) in them.Some folks are real fanatics about them,but they are tough to hunt.Mostly in marshes/flooded woods/briar patches and much more nocturnal than our native whitetail.

In parts of Texas and New Mexico there are some free ranging exotics like gemsbok, aoudad and some others. But mostly in Texas it is behind high fence.

Nilgai, Axis, some Sika, Aoudad, maybe some Blackbuck and other exotics roam around in places in Texas.

Have even seen Wildebeast and Eland being raised in Texas.

Big Herds of free ranging Axis Deer in Hawaii
(Molokai Island). Also, free ranging Mouflon Sheep in Hawaii (mostly Lanai Island).
There once were Pronghorn Antelope loosed there, but only a few left as they became a nussaince &
they tried to eradicate them (Lanai Island), but a few survived.
There are Eland on the Big Island (Hawaii).
Best Regards, Tom

My knowledge is not complete, but I can talk about the exotics located in Texas and New Mexico.

There are free-ranging herds of Gemsbok in New Mexico on the immense military base there. There is also a population of Ibex in New Mexico, but I don't know much about them.

There are Aoudad sheep free-ranging in two regions of Texas, both big and rugged, much like their home range. There is also a free-ranging herd of Armenian Red Sheep in the desert mountains of west Texas. There are many Nilgi antelope in the brush country of south Texas, and very large populations of Axis and Blackbuck antelope in south-central Texas.

Just my two cents...but we have Black buck, Aoudad, Axis, Fallow, Mouflon and some other stuff I don't recognize passing through our place in West Texas on a regular basis.... I know of a guy raising Cape Buffalo and came around a corner one time just north of Concan and almost fudged my undies, to this day I don't know what kind of huge "antelope/cow" I saw...but it were "BIG"

YO and 777 ranch claim 50 species. Not sure how accurate that is.

Kangaroos in Wisconsin.

http://bogusgold.com/posts/1134253728.shtml

WC

quote:

Originally posted by Wildcat Crazy:
Kangaroos in Wisconsin.

http://bogusgold.com/posts/1134253728.shtml

WC

'Roo's are so close to extinction here in Kaleefornia that we aren't allowed to import products made from them anymore.
That must be the reason! Isn't it?

Dave

Texas Parks & Wildlife
Exotics Publications
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/publications/huntwild/wild/species/exotics/

Exotics in Texas:
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/publications/pwdpubs/media/pwd_bk_w7000_0206.pdf
(Adobe Acrobat file.)

-Bob F.

I see the date of the survey in the report was 1988. I bet numbers in the wild are dramatically different 18 years later. Especially regarding Axis, Blackbuck and some of the goats and sheep. The few ranchers that I know in the Hill Country that don't have paid hunters shoot the sheep/goats as vermin.