Kibkom North Cyprus Forum

Taking my dog for her early morning walk towards the village of Bahceli I was surprised to see about 75metres away what I thought was a deer. It stood there just looking at me until a car came along and it bounded away. On the return some short distance from where I had previously seen it there it was just standing and looking towards me.I looked at it for a while then continued on my way.Looked it up on the internet to see if deer are wild in Cyprus and was surprised to read that what I saw was of the sheep family and called a mouflon.It certainly looks more like a deer than a sheep.Its reasonably rare in Cyprus,has anybody else seen one?Thank goodness the brave hunters weren't around.

Seen Mouflon in Troodos mountains; they live in mountains - rare to see them this side.

have seen them in troodos and they look like a sheep, they have big horns. thought I saw a muncjack deer here but turned out it was a large hare, may be one of these you saw.

The Mouflon has large curly horns and there are quite a few around on this side of the Island as the local sheep farmers "smuggle" them across the crossing points - generally at what is known as Pila crossing - in the backs of vans and even open white twin cab trucks. Everyone knows they are not supposed to do it but the Mouflon is so prized on both sides of the line that it happens quite often. Then every now and then they will escape and go wild up into the mountains so if it was one you were lucky to see it. Have seen a couple up in the mountains above Catalkoy and once out the back of Esentepe but apart from that I know one farmer around the Ozankoy area has a couple as well.

They do have deer here, only knew they were around the Maronite village of Korucam