Mount Pleasant, Portland – For as long as he could remember, yam farmer Anthony Bell had been hunting reindeer in Portland’s rugged, hilly terrain.

He was never fortunate enough to catch any of the fleet-footed animals. However, he’s had the pleasure, he said, of feasting on its flesh. “I have eaten the meat before, and it much nicer than goat, everything different from goat meat,” he told the Sunday Observer.

Two Fridays ago, Bell’s luck turned when he caught two calves on his farm. “I went to bush looking some food. some soft yam, when I saw them,” he told the Sunday Observer.

“I was just walking back home and I buck them up on the ground lying down. I had a bag, so I just empty it out and take them up and carry them home,” said Bell.

The calves, he said, were apparently hunting for food when he ran into them. “I have been hunting them a long time, but this is my first catch,” he said, adding that on the occasions he had seen the animals in the past he had thrown stones at them in an attempt to knock them out.

Portland’s reindeer population started growing after a few that were being raised at the Summerset Falls rain forest attraction escaped into the hills when Hurricane Gilbert slammed into the island in September 1988.

But their growth has proven a nuisance to farmers, particularly in the Mount Pleasant area, who have always complained that the animals eat their crops, especially carrots, pumpkins, potatoes, peas and corn.

The reindeer’s ravenous tendencies eventually forced many people to stop farming far from home so that they could protect their crops.

However, on the rare occasions when the farmers were able to either catch the reindeer or knock them over with stones, they found good use for the animals’ meat which, they said, tastes better than goat meat.

Soon, reindeer meat became the rage, and was being sold for $400 per pound and more in response to the demand.

“A lot of people mek money when them catch the big ones and sell the meat,” said Bell. “It helpful and it bad, but you have to give thanks. If them never been good I would not have a pair, and a lot of people come and see them.”

Bell said he feeds the two young reindeer with milk, from a baby bottle, about five times a day.

“People appreciate them and encourage me to take good care of them,” he told the Sunday Observer. “I care for them just as I care for myself, as they are beautiful creatures just like myself.”

Bell’s friend, Calvin ‘Prento’ Brembridge, said he had encouraged Bell to take care of the animals and “make something out of them”.

One little boy, Michael Clarke, agreed and said that while he had never seen reindeer before, he, too, had eaten their meat. “My uncle have carrot farm and them eat them out, but them meat eat sweet,” the Mount Pleasant Primary School student said.

Farmers in Content, on the other side of Mount Pleasant, also complained to the Sunday Observer that their crops were being damaged by reindeer. However, those farmers admitted that they have been able, with the help of dogs, to snare more of the animals.

Reindeer are also common at Little Spring Gardens near to Summerset Falls.

One farmer, who gave his name only as Neville, said, “I caught one recently. I used a rope, and it weighed about 66 pounds. They normally weigh from 60 pounds up”.