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The distribution of spotted deer or Chital (Axis axis) in the 5,000 square kilometres of the Chennai Metropolitan Area should be mapped and the various sub-populations and important corridors identified so that the species’ population can be managed properly, a new paper has suggested.
The researchers — Rosella Daniels and Sarangan Prabakaran from the Marine Biology Regional Center, Zoological Survey of India — stated that Chital had survived across Chennai as ‘meta-population’ till now. Their proper management was thus required so that their populations did not get isolated, leading to inbreeding.
“Spotted deer in Chennai has apparently survived in the form of a dynamic ‘meta-population’. Periodic dispersion of small herds may have played a role in keeping the sub-populations inter-connected. It is therefore important to manage the spotted deer in Chennai in a way that sub-populations do not get totally isolated and there is scope for continuous exchange of animals between them.”
Daniels and Prabakaran also said the Chital in Chennai may have had a longer presence than is usually assumed.
Well-known naturalist and wildlife photographer M Krishnan had stated that Chital had been introduced to Chennai.
The story, according to Krishnan, was that “a small herd of spotted deer held captive within a paddock in the Government House of erstwhile Madras” was released in 1947 inside the ‘Guindy Lodge’, a wilderness area that surrounded the Raj Bhavan.
This area later became the Guindy Deer Park and in 1978, the Guindy National Park.
However, both researchers provided another tidbit from history.
“Although M Krishnan’s views have been generally accepted, another little-known book has provided some interesting, if not contradicting, insights. According to the author, Isabel Savory, a British hunter who travelled in India towards the end of the 19th century, the ‘Guindy Park’ was already ‘overstocked’ with spotted deer (Savory, 1900). It appears that the spotted deer has had a much longer history in Chennai than previously thought. Only further research can reveal whether all the deer found in the city have descended from an introduced stock.”
Whatever be the origins of Chennai’s Chital, the moot point as per the researchers is that there is very little information about them.
One study undertaken in 1968 reported that there were 825 deer inside the Guindy Deer Park. The population in the Guindy National Park increased to 482 in 1991 and to 622 in 1992.
“Today the spotted deer is found in many other localities inside the city. Outside the Guindy National Park, the deer number is the largest within the adjoining Indian Institute of Technology Madras (Care Earth, 2006). Smaller sub-populations exist within a few institutional areas in the vicinity and are also somewhat far removed in Tambaram at a distance of nearly 20 km south of the Guindy National Park. Other than these, there are small free-ranging herds locally especially in Vandalur and Urapakkam,” the paper noted.
The authors also talked about a personal experience to state why the deer population needs mapping.
Daniels lived in the neighbourhood of Velachery between 2006 and 2012. At the time, herds that foraged locally used to enter an open, unused park right in front of her apartment to rest.
“This occurred on a daily basis and it was possible to get close to the deer and directly count every individual without disturbing them. Herds were small and nearly 60% of the herds encountered were of three or fewer deer. Only once a herd of 12 deer was observed. When the six years’ data was scrutinized, a steady decline in the number of herds became evident,” according to the paper.
The authors hypothesised that the decline in the number of free-ranging herds between 2006 and 2012 could have been because they may have been able to avail better sources of food and safer habitats elsewhere.
“The availability of food is known to induce dispersion (Raman, 2015). Movement of free-ranging herds has also been reported elsewhere. In a recent article published in The Hindu, it was reported that spotted deer regularly move back and forth through a ‘corridor’ between the Vandalur reserve forest and Selaiyur in East Tambaram (The Hindu Bureau, 2024). It is possible that there are a few more corridors,” the paper read.
Free-ranging Spotted Deer (Axis axis) in Chennai, India was published in the Journal of Wildlife Science.