Origin of red deer revealed

FOR many years there’s been a debate, sometimes quite heated, about the origins of the red deer herd in the National Park outside Killarney.

It was generally accepted that all other red deer were imported in historical times, but that the Killarney herd was different and somehow more Irish. But how did they get there?

There were basically three theories. The first was that they were ancient Irish animals that had somehow managed to survive the last Ice Age in a warm refuge in Kerry. I found this theory quite convincing because of the other examples of so-called Lusitanian flora and fauna in Kerry — things like arbutus trees, natterjack toads and the Kerry slug. There’s also the fact that other mammals, notably the Irish hare, seem to have an unbroken lineage stretching back well into pre-glacial times.

The second theory was that they managed to colonise Ireland just after the ice retreated, using a land bridge to Britain or continental Europe. Many other plants and animals, including most of our native trees, seem to have managed to do this, so why not red deer? This theory was generally popular but suffered from the fact that the geologists were rather vague about the existence and timing of any land bridges.

The last theory was that they were imported by Neolithic farmers around 5,000 years ago. But I always found this the least convincing of the three theories. It turns out I was wrong.

Earlier this year a scientific paper was published in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews which proved, pretty much beyond argument, that Neolithic farmers did import the deer into Ireland and that they are technically not a native species.

The DNA research was coordinated by Dr Ruth Carden of the National Museum and Dr Allan McDevitt of UCD, but there were contributions from other Irish scientists and from experts in Britain, Austria and the United States. It’s impressively thorough and wide-ranging.

It also looked at other red deer populations in Ireland and confirmed genetically that these were 19th and 20th century introductions.

The fact that the Killarney red deer are the descendants of farm animals imported from Britain should not in any way diminish their conservation status. These magnificent animals need our management and protection as much as they ever did. They are, after all, more Irish than most the people reading this page.

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