If you mention the word muntjac after a couple of jars in any local Devon pub, everyone, it will seem, has a story of a sighting. The muntjac that escaped just outside of Exeter, the muntjac hit on the link road, the cousin who saw a muntjac kicked up by a pack of beagles. While muntjac in Devon may be considered on par with the Exmoor Beast in local tales, muntjac are not new to the UK.
The genus Muntiacus has 12 recognized species. Reeves’ or Chinese muntjac originating in south-east China were first captured and released into Woburn Park by the 11th Duke of Bedford in the early 1900s. The Duke, while serving as the president of the Zoological Society of London, was a notorious spreader of invasive species.
He famously gave the New Zealand government five Himalayan tahr in, I understand, have spent the past 100 years trying to eradicate these.
