Erin Hill

Thesis Title: Forensic and population genetic analysis of introduced and endangered Hog Deer (Axis porcinus)

Supervisors: Jan Strugnell, Nick Murphy, Adrian Linacre

PhD student, Erin Hill, seeks to assessing genetic diversity & connectivity in Hog deer

My project is to develop microsatellites to identify individual hog deer for forensic purposes, and to examine any differences between native and introduced populations. The hog deer is endangered in its native range including India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Myanmar. Due to the rarity of the hog deer, trophies and meat are highly sought after by hunters in Australia and overseas, which can lead to illegal harvesting. Management authorities face difficulties in determining how many hog deer have been harvested by a single hunter, as they can encounter frozen meat samples with no morphological identifiers. Deer can also be illegally harvested with hunters taking antlers and capes for trophies and leaving headless bodies. There is currently no definitive way for authorities to match the abandoned body to antlers or head skins in the possession of suspects. To combat this, genetic markers can be developed to determine how many individual deer are present in any seizure or to match body parts to carcasses. It is also unknown how genetically similar introduced populations are to native populations of hog deer. Victoria’s population of hog deer is relatively stable, which may be important for conservation efforts in its native range in the future. It is therefore important to determine if the Victorian population is genetically similar to native populations, as this will give some indication of the likelihood of successful integration between the two populations.