Just wanted to chime in here. I am a frequent visitor of VI. Specifically St. John. They are not native, and they have no predators. This is an issue. The locals on St. John had to seek these out as they were infested with ticks, and Lyme Disease was becoming widespread. For fear of the local wildlife, they had to be sought after and taken out ASAP. This is not a good thing that they are found there! Granted they were introduced in the 1970's, and we can say they evolved to survive on the islands, however, they have no predators, so they are overpopulating and disease is spreading among-st them. Here is a link you may be interested in reading. Feds cull St. John deer herd by dozens.
Just wondering how big is the island your talking about or how big is the biggest island if you know? Thanks
St. John is 8 miles from Cruz Bay to Coral Bay, the two "cities" on the island. Less than 20% of the island is available to build on. The rest is protected. The biggest island, St. Crox, is more commercialized, for example, the USVI version of New York City. St. Thomas would be like Albany, and St. John would be more along the lines of a small isolated country town.
There has been several introductions going as far back as to the 1700's, when the Danes were first in command and control of the territory and they made the introduction of two subspecies of whitetails form the Southeastern region of the United States and from Mexico. As Ishio made mentioned there is no predation other than man, but hunting was officially closed in 1971. I live on St. Croix the largest of all 4 islands at 82 sq mi. The dates on the pictures are correct and since we are very close to the equator antlers and breeding is year round. The department of fish and wildlife is attempting to restore hunting and they have been working on the rules and regulations for the past year. The behavior that the whitetails here displays is very different when it comes to pattering them because they are constantly moving. On St. Croix we don't have serious agricultural grounds like those in the Midwest so the deer here eat a large variety of the local plants and grasses.
Very interesting....I get that breeding can happen year round there...but do bucks hold antlers year round or is it just random when they drop?
Good morning The antlers drops on a random bases, because I have seen several bucks throughout the year in various stages of growth.
Ok that's what I figured. So if hunting isn't currently allowed do any of the bucks grow big antlers or do they stay fairly small?
Based on long distance observation most bucks here are under 125 inches, but the picture above is of a buck that was aged at approximately 7+ years by our local wildlife biologist.
