In the 1940s, a California landowner released about three dozen zoo deer at Point Reyes for hunting; by 2002, the two non-native herds had grown to roughly 1,100 animals

Point Reyes National Seashore, on the Marin County coast north of San Francisco, is home to two species of deer that have no business being there. Fallow deer and axis deer, native to Europe/Asia Minor and India, respectively, were never meant to establish themselves on the California coast. Their presence traces back not to natural range expansion, but to a zoo and a local landowner’s hunting grounds, and their story has become a case study in the long-term ecological cost of introducing non-native species.