Deer are among nature’s most beautiful animals

Posted in Animals, Nature, Wildlife on Friday, 14 December 2012

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This edited article about deer originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 798 published on 30th April 1977.

Young fallow deer, picture, image, illustration

A young fallow deer

The fallow deer may have been imported into Britain by the Romans, though there is no proof of this. But we do know that there were such deer in Anglo-Saxon England before William the Conqueror arrived.

Fallow deer are said to be running wild in every county in England except Middlesex and in Scotland and Wales as well. Many have escaped from the captivity of deer parks, along with smaller, less well-known species like the Chinese Water deer, the Muntjac and the Sika deer, which featured in our April 9th issue.

Wild fallow deer in Britain are almost exclusively woodland animals, though they will appear on open land to feed on crops. Naturally, this does not make them popular with farmers.

Only male fallow deer have antlers. These start to grow in May, and at first are covered with a sott velvety substance. By September this has frayed away and fallen off, and until the Spring the antlers are hard and bony. Then in April the old antlers fall off, and a few weeks later the whole process starts again.

These deer are highly social animals, but we know very much less about their behaviour when they are in herds than we do about the red deer (pictured to the right of the fallow deer).

Red deer have been studied closely by a number of experts, including Dr. Fraser Darling, who wrote a famous book called A Herd of Red Deer.

Yet it was a small herd of fallow, not red, deer, that was observed not so long ago feeding beside the M1 motorway and heading for Sherwood Forest, doubtless to delight the ghosts of Robin Hood and his merry men. These beautiful animals had escaped from a private estate.

Strangely enough, another species at large in Britain is the reindeer, which is to be found in the Cairngorm Mountains in the Scottish Highlands. The animals were introduced by the Reindeer Council of Great Britain in the hope that they could be herded in the high Scottish mountains in the same way that they are in Lapland.

The roe deer, like the much taller red deer, is a native of Britain, though it also lives in many European countries and parts of Asia. These small creatures – a buck is only half a metre high at the shoulder – do not go about in herds but in ones and twos. They, too, are not very popular with farmers and do considerable damage by gnawing the bark of trees.

And the scientific name for deer? They are all the members of the Cervidae family of the even-toes hoofed mammals.

They are all game animals, their flesh being considered food, while their striking antlers are used in the manufacture of knife handles and other articles.

Only one species has both sexes equipped with antlers – the reindeer. Every sort of deer is a joy to behold, unless one happens to be an irate farmer!

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