Hunt for invasive axis deer in Hawaiʻi
In the 1860s, the British colony of Hong Kong gave the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi eight axis deer. The beautiful spotted animals, native to India, were released on the island of Molokaʻi. In the absence of predators, they multiplied swiftly. In 1959 and 1960, nine deer were relocated to Maui. There, too, numbers soared.
Alongside other large herbivores, none of which are native to Hawaiʻi, axis deer have devastated crops and stripped hillsides of drought-stressed vegetation, allowing rain to erode soil and sweep it into wetlands and onto coral reefs, harming critical habitats. To accelerate deer control measures, Hawaiʻi has issued more than two dozen emergency proclamations in recent years.
Many families hunt deer and prize the meat, especially on Molokaʻi, but hunting alone hasn’t kept numbers in check. So islanders have turned to an unconventional solution: commercial harvest. State and federal laws ban nearly all sale of wild game in the US, but federal rules allow USDA inspection and then sale of some non-native species, including axis deer. In 2007, Molokaʻi hunter Desmund Manaba became the first in Hawaiʻi to win approval to harvest axis deer and sell the meat. In 2012, Maui County backed a harvesting cooperative of its own.
Today, shooters working for Maui Nui Venison take deer from private ranches each night. Fresh or processed into snack sticks, most of the meat is sold. A portion is distributed for free to local families through the company’s Holo ʻAi program, which the company links to Hawaiʻi’s long tradition of food-sharing and which helped ensure food security during the COVID-19 pandemic and after the devastating 2023 wildfires.
