Aussie..,
You wrote, "There is also a smaller herd in the Northern Territory on the Coburg Peninsula, but I have not hunted that herd and the antlers appear to grow less that the southern animals."
This is way off the thread and no one's ever gone off thread before but ... Some biologist came up with a theory that the further north an animal was found, the bigger it grew. But that was north of the equator. So south of the equator, do they get bigger the furhter south you go, in your experience?
Forgive me I have sinned.
Please excuse the digression folks;
The Southern Hemisphere has no relevence to the Northern counterpart. The earth is divided in quarters and the Tropic of Cancer runs througfh Wisconsin elevation where as the Tropic of Capricorn runs through Rockhampton in Queensland to the south.
Wisconsin gets snow, "Rocky" never will. The water flows down the toilet anti clock wise in the north and clockwise in the south. There is no rule pertaining to animal size I know of for the northern hemisphere that applies in the southern hemishpere.
FYI,
Moose, Mule Deer, White tail, Fallow, Red, Chital, Sambar, Elk, Hog and Rusa were all introduced into Australia and New Zealand during the first years of the 20th century and those that were not shot out, thrived with odd rumors of the lost few still in folklore from time to time.
The size of some animals in the Southern Hemisphere has been manipulated by man in order to tap into the tourist hunter dollars.
N.Z. reds for example are way larger than their native homelands in Europe or Australia due to the turbo charged breakfast cereals provided. You will notice that there is truck loads of video footage of monster stags but never are there any hinds in those same pics. mmmmmmmmmmmmm!
Time for me to butt out of this one.
AGW
