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Sambar Deer (Rusa unicolor)

Sambar (now Rusa unicolor – previously Cervus unicolor) inhabit eastern Victoria and southern New South Wales and comprise the most important herd in the world outside of their native countries where the available habitat is diminishing daily outside of protected areas and where their IUCN status is listed as Vulnerable.

Sambar are the largest of Australia’s wild deer and the third largest of all deer species behind moose and wapiti. They are extremely wary and shy and have a well-earned reputation as one of the hardest to hunt of all the world’s game animals. It is quite normal for the majority of the human population to be unaware of the existence of sambar populations in our forested areas.

They are strong and tough animals with a thick hide and coarse hair of a uniform brown colour on the body. This brown colour fades to a light buff colour under the chin, on the inner legs and along the under-body. The rump is usually ginger. The ears are large and round and the inner ear is pale with tufts of longer hair at the base. Sambar are expert at standing completely motionless and it is only an occasional movement of their prominent bat-like ears which sometimes betrays them to an experienced eye.

Stags can stand up to 130cm at the shoulder (about the height of a Jersey cow) and weigh over 300kg. Hinds are smaller and can grow to about 115cm and weigh in the vicinity of 230kg. Although they are plainer than most other deer species there is nothing to match the magnificent presence of a sambar stag or the beauty of a sambar hind.

A sambar antler is typically three tined and the outer top tine is usually the continuation of the main beam while the inner top tine is somewhat shorter. This is not always the case and there are many instances of stags with ‘shanghai’ tops where the inner tine matches or exceeds the length of the outer tine. If there is any rule about sambar antlers, it is that, though similar, they are almost never identical

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