HYBRIDISATION BETWEEN RED DEER (Cervus elaphus) AND OTHER DEER SPECIES

Red deer (R) are the predominant species of farmed deer in New Zealand. There is considerable interest in hybridisation with other deer species to improve growth rate and possibly alter the breeding season of the progeny. Analysis of gestation lengths indicates that the progeny of Canadian wapiti (CW) or CW x R deer have gestation lengths intermediate between the parental strains but the progeny of Pere David’s deer (PD) x R have highly variable gestation lengths (mean + SD of 252 f 5.0 days). Analysis of the three species for electrophoretic protein variation has located fixed protein polymorphic differences between R and CW (haemoglobin and a post-transferrin) and between R and PD (transferrin and albumin). The segregation of the protein variants in the backcross hybrids followed the expected Mendelian pattern for codominant inheritance at a single locus.