My eldest boy was at an environmental talk with his work and one of the other attendee's stated that there was a Sambar that had been hit by a car in SEQ not far from my place actually. What do you think? Plausible? or a Rusa?

They are everywhere, not a bad thing.

It does not surprise me. We've known for years they'd got past Canberra and I've heard of them half way to Adelaide, along the Murray.

Last hunting trip to the Mary Valley we bagged a rusa/sambar cross stag. They are there , just no one talks about it .

There are a LOT of rusa within a 50km radius of Brisbane CBD

quote:

Originally posted by muzza:
Last hunting trip to the Mary Valley we bagged a rusa/sambar cross stag. They are there , just no one talks about it .

Photo please Muzz

cant do hunt pics but heres the head

see how big it is ? ;-)

sorry bout the pic sizes . The hunting one is stored in dropbox and I am damned if I know how I even managed to get it top post here , let alone resize it . Too many left thumbs.....

Hard to tell but the skull size seems down on a sambar skull size

the stag was a little bigger in body than a rusa , maybe 15% but the antlers are much heavier.

Got some hunt pics up now .

Nice stag and nice gun.

I have a 7600 identical to that. Great guns.

Rusa Muzz

nah mate - definately a cross bred. Antlers ar enormous compared to a rusa, hehad sambar type ears and a semi ruff neck. Didnt look like a rusa much at all .
I have two damn good rusa on my wall and these antlers are nothing like rusa antlers.

I understand that Muzz but sambar can have some super weirdo antlers at times whereas "generally" the rusa will be a more uniform style.
I said Rusa going on the face of the first pic. Hey there may be sambar in the blood too but that face ...

At a risk of turning this upside down; how far south have rusa gotten themselves?

Back in the heyday of deer farming the perceived wisdom was rusa did not do well in cold climates but I’ve just heard of sighting of a rusa stag following a pair of sambar hinds not far from the Jindabyne ski fields. The blending of the two herds was long ago predicted to be on the cards at Batemans Bay but I would have thought rusa would stick to the coast.

Sambar and Rusa have been hybridising for quite a few years down Bega and beyond