Captivity Becomes Blessing for Hog Deer

In clearings in Sri Lanka’s vast stretches of cinnamon groves and tropical forest, a Buddhist monk, a homemaker and a bicycle mechanic are breaking the law.

Each could be jailed for six months and fined 30,000 rupees ($450) for keeping endangered hog deer in captivity. But in a curious turn of events, conservationists are thanking them.

Had they not preserved the species as pets, Sri Lanka would have lost them forever.

“Though they broke the law, they did help save the animal,” said Nandana Atapattu, a deputy director of Sri Lanka’s Department of Wildlife Conservation.

Atapattu has combed southern Sri Lanka’s cinnamon-growing area for four years in search of the animal which, as the name suggests, somewhat resembles a pig.

The gentle-tempered, endearingly awkward deer was thought to have nearly disappeared from Sri Lanka five decades ago. But in 1992, Atapattu’s department found two hog deer being kept as pets at Batapola, a hamlet about 60 miles south of Colombo.

“Since then I have been spending my free time meeting villagers, schoolchildren and asking them about hog deer,” Atapattu said as he and about a dozen volunteers visited remote villages collecting the animals.

Atapattu plans to keep domesticated hog deer in a barricaded area until they learn to live on their own, then release them into one of Sri Lanka’s dozen national parks.

Hog deer have a thickset appearance and peculiar gait. The animal runs with its head down and at times collides with fellow deer, other animals and even trees.

An adult hog deer stands at just over two feet and weighs between 75 and 120 pounds. The female gives birth to one fawn at a time.

India, Burma, Thailand, Indochina and Sri Lanka are the known habitat of the hog deer. They are listed as endangered in all those countries.

The hog deer once roamed freely in Sri Lanka. Its downfall was its love of rubbing its body against sweet-scented cinnamon trees, destroying the precious bark that is the spice. Male hog deer often damage cinnamon trees by digging at the roots with their horns. The deer also eat cinnamon leaves.

Early Portuguese, Dutch and British colonists generally let the hog deer alone, because cinnamon and uninhabited land were plentiful. After independence from the British in 1948, however, Sri Lanka accelerated cinnamon production, and the clash with the hog deer began.

“Cinnamon growers used wire-noose traps and even deployed hunting dogs to get rid of the hog deer,” Atapattu said.

A small group of animal lovers at Batapola and surrounding villages got together on their own to save the hog deer by domesticating it. Now many of the do-it-yourself conservationists are helping Atapattu.

“I knew that for the project to be successful I would need grass-roots volunteers who would . . . know which homes are keeping the pets,” Atapattu said.

“I have four now,” said homemaker Tushe Havage Mallika as she fed biscuits to her hog deer. “One of them even insists on sleeping on our bed.”

A 75-year-old Buddhist monk, Sudama Thero, patted a hog deer he said had been presented as a gift to his temple four years ago.

Atapattu and his men have found 20 captive hog deer. As Atapattu was leaving a remote village, one of his volunteers brought the news that a hog deer was being kept in a bicycle-repair shop in another village.

Bicycle mechanic T.H. Nandasena handed over his pet with some reluctance.

“Well, I am feeling very sad. I raised it since it was very small,” he said as Atapattu and his men untied the animal and loaded it onto a Jeep.