Red deer

Scientific name: Cervus elpahus

"How can a deer tell when a leaf falls silent in the forest? She hears it breathing differently."
- Richard Bach

The British Isles’ largest extant wild mammal, the red deer is a charismatic species where the males battle each other during the autumn ‘rutting season’ for a chance to mate.

Taxonomy chart

Animalia – Chordata – Mammalia – Artiodactyla – Cervidae - Cervus – C. elaphus

Conservation status: UK Red List

GB: Least Concern

England: Least Concern

Scotland: Least Concern

Wales: Least Concern

Global: Least Concern

Summary

Diet: Herbivorous. Grasses, sedges, rushes, dwarf-shrubs, and saplings.

Habitat: Mixture of upland and moorland, coniferous woodland, heathland, and open hill.

Size: Weight: calves 3-50kg, females 70-100kg, males 100-225kg. Size: up to 1.37 metres at the shoulder.

Lifecycle: Live up to 20 years, average of 16. Stags mature at 5-6. Breed during the autumn rut and have 1 calf during the early summer, which is weaned at 8 months.

Conservation concerns: Overgrazing due to lack of native predators leading to reduced woodland regeneration. Hybridisation with sika deer.

Terminology

The rut/rutting: The period in autumn during which stags fight to mate with does.

Geography

In Britain, most red deer are found on the open moorlands of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, although scattered populations are found elsewhere such as northwest England, East Anglia, Exmoor and Ireland.

Red deer favour upland and moorland, coniferous woodland, and heathland habitats. About 80% of the Scottish red deer populations live in open-hill habitats year-round. In winter, red deer usually concentrate on sheltered lower ground, moving to higher altitude feeding areas in the summer.

Biology

Red deer are the largest of the 6 deer species that inhabit the British Isles, with stags (males) being larger than hinds (females). They can grow up to 1.37 metres at the shoulder, and stags can grow up to 2.01 metres in length from nose to tail. Calves usually weigh 30-50kg, whilst females weigh 70-100kg. Mature males usually weigh 100-180kg up to a whopping 225kg, which can be as heavy as a female grizzly bear!

Covered by a plain, red-brown coat, red deer sport a creamy rump, and males crown their heads with antlers of up to three branches. The footprints they leave behind are oval and 5x7cm long.

Red deer can live up to 20 years (though most only live until 16 in the wild). Mating takes place from the end of September to November and is known as ‘the rut’. Mature stags, who are between 5-6 years old, leave bachelor groups to seek out hinds at traditional rutting sites. Stags attempt to defend groups of 10-15 hinds - though some can be up to 70 strong - in an attempt to prevent mating by other stags, engaging in roaring contests, which may escalate to include parallel walking and antler locking.

Following the rut, stags and hinds usually separate themselves again. Hind groups consist of a dominant hind, her dependent offspring, and her mature daughters with their offspring, all sharing over-lapping ranges. In contrast, stag groups are less stable and comprise unrelated individuals. Calves (usually one, very rarely twins) produced as a consequence of the autumn matings are born from mid-May, with a peak of births in the 1st or 2nd week of June. Calves are usually weaned by 8 months old, by which time they have moulted out of their spotted natal coat.

Ecology

Red deer are herbivores and enjoy a variety of foods. Grasses, sedges and rushes make up the bulk of their summer diet, whilst dwarf-shrubs such as heather and blueberry are more important in winter. They are also known to browse saplings and young trees.

In Scotland, red deer that live in the open tend to be smaller and produce fewer young (one calf every other year) than those who reside in woodland habitat. Stags and hinds who live out in the open usually remain in separate groups for most of the year, and the females monopolise the grass-rich habitats in groups of up to 40 individuals, whilst stags feed in poorer, health-dominated habitats.

The current abundance of red deer populations and lack of natural predators means that they have a heavy influence on their surrounding habitats and landscapes. Red deer strip bark, overgraze, browse, and trample plants, which reduces undergrowth cover, alters the composition of plant communities, and can prevent woodland regeneration. This even has knock-on negative impacts for other species, such as decreasing the populations of small mammals or woodland birds who use understorey habitats. However, red deer are an importance source of food, especially as carrion, for other species such as golden eagles, buzzards, badgers, pine martens, and foxes.

Conservation

Red deer are classified as ‘of least concern’ across all Red Lists and thus are not a priority species for conservation. However, their overgrazing and negative impact on British ecology and biodiversity means that actions are being taken to decrease populations.

The culling of red deer for sport, meat, or management is currently the predominant way in which their populations are controlled. Red deer are at risk from hybridisation with the introduced sika deer, which is thought to pose a significant threat to their genetic integrity. In the southern Lake District and Wicklow Mountains, populations are now composed almost entirely of red-sika hybrids. Some experts think that in time, pure red deer may only survive on some of the Scottish islands.

History

Red deer have been present in the British Isles since the end of the last ice age.

They appear in folklore from both a Eurasian and Celtic origin and were especially present in myths and legends across Scotland and Ireland. In these regions, they were sometimes known as ‘fairy cattle’ from tales of otherworldly spirits milking them from the mountain tops, or goddesses who could shapeshift into a red or white deer.

In Irish mythology, Fionn mac Cumhaill found a beautiful deer whilst out hunting which he took back to his land. The deer then grew into her true form; a woman named Sadhb, who had been cursed and turned into a deer.

In the Celtic religion, the stag was a symbol of the god Cernunnos - ‘The Horned One’, who was a god of wild places and wild animals.

In Arthurian legends, legendary white red deer stags were unable to be captured, providing an endless spiritual quest for knights.

Unfortunately, hunting and woodland clearance caused red deer numbers to plummet by the end of the 18th century, but in the late 1800s, deer stalking grew popular and ‘deer forests’ were created. This, alongside the under-culling of females and the colonisation of forestry plantations, means that over the last century, red deer numbers have increased significantly across Britain.

Identifying and surveying

Footprints: Red deer have the largest footprints of all deer species (width 7cm, length 9cm). However, footprints can be confused with other deer species as well as goat and sheep prints. Red deer can also leave hairs on fences.

Droppings: Deer droppings are 2-2.5 centimetres x 1.3-1.8 centimetre and initially black and shiny, becoming gradually duller and darker brown. Cylindrical or acorn-shaped, they are often pointed at one end and rounded or slightly concave at the other. They do not have obvious coloration or smell. Deer droppings tend to be a similar shape across all species, although red deer droppings are the largest of all species.

Tail: The best way to determine which deer species you have seen is by looking at the rump and tail. The red deer has a buff rump, with a short beige tail.

Surveying period: Red deer can be surveyed year-round.

Frequently asked questions

Red deer enjoy a variety of foods. Grasses, sedges and rushes make up the bulk of their summer diet, whilst dwarf-shrubs such as heather and blueberry are more important in winter. They are also known to browse saplings and young trees.
In Britain, most red deer are found on the open moorlands of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, although scattered populations are found elsewhere such as north westnorthwest England, East Anglia, Exmoor and Ireland. Red deer usually favour upland and moorland, coniferous woodland, and heathland habitats.
No, red deer are not endangered in the British Isles. They are classified as ‘of least concern’ on the Red List for mammals.
Stags (male red deer) use their antlers to fight other males during the ‘rut’ (breeding season) from September to November, including by locking their antler with each other. Once the breeding season is over and spring arrives, hormonal changes due to increasing day lengths cause red deer to shed their antlers in March or April and then grow new ones before the next rutting season.
No, red deer are not dangerous to humans. However, red deer can be involved in traffic accidents.

Confusion species

Fallow deer (Dama dama)

allow have a heart-shaped white rump with a black horseshoe-shaped border and comparatively long tail with a black line down its length (giving the appearance of the number 111). A typical fallow coat has distinctive spots all year round, although fallow coats can vary greatly, compared to red deer, which have no spots.

Roe deer (Capreolus capreolus)

Red deer are much larger species than roe. Roe deer have a plain cream/white rump, which can be flared when alarmed, and no visible tail, whilst red deer have a buff-coloured rump with a ginger buff tail. Mature male roe deer have small, branched antlers, typically with no more than 3 points, whilst red deer have large, branched antlers with many branches.

Sika deer (Cervus nippon)

Sika have a heart-shaped white rump with a black upper border, as well as a white tail, shorter than those of fallow deer and with a much fainter vertical black stripe. Sika have distinctive spots on their coat in the summer, which red deer do not have. Red deer also have a more reddish coat and are a larger species than the sika.