New Zealand's Dart River valley is home to one of the world's most remote whitetail herds. Photo by Gordon Whittington.

Take a chunk of Switzerland, stir in a cup of Hawaii, sprinkle liberally with Great Britain and what do you get? One of the world's truly breathtaking places. And, perhaps, one of the most unusual whitetail habitats that anyone could ever lay eyes on.

We're talking about the island nation of New Zealand, literally on the other side of the planet from where North America's most popular big-game animal evolved. The land that served as the backdrop for the filming of the blockbuster "Lord of the Rings" movies is a world apart in virtually every way.

While it might come as a shock to folks who have trouble telling Hollywood from reality, the landscape that director Peter Jackson transformed into Middle Earth on the big screen isn't really hobbit or orc habitat. For that matter, other than two species of bats, New Zealand has never been home to any native land mammals. Even the indigenous Maori people are basically newcomers, having canoed here from elsewhere in the Pacific perhaps 1,000 years ago.

The roots of New Zealand's unique whitetail history are considerably more recent. Mingled with its human immigration, that history now stretches over exactly 100 years.

Dutch explorer Abel Tasman "discovered" New Zealand in 1642, and British whalers and sealers followed in the 1700s, with the first European settlers coming to stay in the early 1800s. They were fascinated by this odd place, with its spectacular scenery, one-of-a-kind plants and a number of birds that had evolved to be flightless in an ecosystem with no ground-dwelling predators. Some of these earthbound birds, such as the 10-foot-tall moa (think of an ostrich on steroids) had already been wiped out by the Maoris before Europeans arrived; others, including the iconic kiwi, are now endangered, due to the introduction of weasels, stoats, dogs and housecats in more modern times.

A HISTORY OF STOCKINGS
Despite the bounty of unique native species the Europeans found upon arrival to New Zealand, they soon grew homesick for more familiar flora and fauna. And so, along with various cultivated plants, they brought in all sorts of creatures, including several species of trout and salmon from North America; rabbits, wallabies and brushtail possums from Australia; dozens of birds from a number of places; and, yes, select members of the deer family from several continents.

The majestic country above Glenorchy has been home to whitetails since nine were released here in 1905. Their 12,000-mile voyage from Missouri ranks as the longest in whitetail history. Map by Terry Jacobs.

That particular phase of the exotic invasion began in the mid-1800s, when red deer from Scotland were released. Through a series of such attempts, by the late 19th century this European cousin of North America's elk had become entrenched in many locations on both the North and South islands.

Bolstered by the results of their efforts with red deer, the tourism arm of the government went looking for more critters. What followed over the next few decades was a procession of ships bearing other sporting animals from several continents. From Asia came the tahr (a shaggy beast that looks like a cross between a sheep and a goat), plus sika, rusa, sambar and axis deer. From Europe came chamois antelope and fallow deer. North America, for its part, provided elk, moose, mule deer, blacktails . . . and whitetails.

The tahr and chamois quickly found a home on the snowy peaks of the Southern Alps, which form the spine of the South Island. The fallow deer went on to become well established in many woodlands at lower elevations on both islands, while the sika became one of the primary deer species on the North Island. In a few pockets you still can find rusa and sambar deer as well.

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