Deer in the UK (Part 3)
In the UK, we are lucky to have many deer living wild in our countryside. Some would go as far as saying that we were spoiled with six officially recognized wild species, some native and some not.
Red deer
The last of the officially recognized species of deer in our short series are reds and sika deer. Each have their areas where they can and can’t be found throughout the UK.
Sika deer tend to favor slightly more acidic soils and red deer are vacant in most of south-central England. But these demographics are changing each year as deer populations are increasing,
The red deer has long been held as the iconic mascot of the Scottish Highlands, and they demand respect. Red deer have a way of humbling all that are fortunate enough to get involved in their constructive management. Like paving the way for young up competing stags to their throne. Or observing the old warrior and long reigning king holding his rutting stand and passing his courageous genetics on one last season before he starts to “go back” in quality.
Red stags can be well over 200 kg in the south west or the forests of east Anglia, but hill stags in harsher highland habitats although still very big are considerably lighter. The hinds on the hill often only give birth every other year because they can struggle to build up enough condition to bear young every year. Mature hinds in the lowland woodlands will bear a calf every year, fecundity rates for good woodland habitats are 0.8 and the hill reds 0.5.
The red stag roaring for their rut is truly amazing to hear as it echoes around their territories. They rut from mid September and the stags create wallows where they urinate and defecate, rolling and bathing in it to become more attractive to the hinds. Fallow and sika wallow too, but none of the smaller non herding species do.
The mighty red stag will also have to defend his hinds and territory from rivals constantly, and therefore stops feeding during the rut. They may lose almost half of their body weight during the rut from the lack of feeding, and need a certain time to rebuild their condition post rut. When the dominant stags become too weak to successfully defend their hinds, other stags will win fights and take over the rutting stand and mate with any hinds who are late to come into estrous.
Two red stags learning to rut.
Due to their great size, they require a large quantity of food and can soon eat through a woodlands undergrowth, carrot crop or pine plantation for example if their numbers are too high. Red stags have a high sporting value even for lower quality heads, more so than any of our other deer, relative to development, perhaps because these are true wild royalty.
Open seasons in England (but different in Scotland) are for stags from 1st August to 31st April and for hinds from 1st November to 31st March.
“Unchecked Sika and red deer populations living in close proximity can and do hybridize. This could mean that in years to come pure native scottish red deer may no longer exist in many areas, and simply become a mix of native and alien species’ DNA.”
Crosses like this are often exceptionally hard to distinguish from a distance and therefore hard to cull in preference to true reds or sika. Some would say at this point in time the gene pool is already beyond purification, and it is sad to think we would lose the true reds, as our largest wild land mammal.
If the populations are kept at manageable more natural levels, we could potentially slow the interbreeding process, preserving our indigenous and iconic highlands reds for as long as we can.
Sika deer
Sika are very interesting to see, the hinds can be easily mistaken for fallow to the novice, and the stags for young reds. Sika have a frowning appearance which can help to distinguish them from other deer species.
The stags do grow a thick mane just like reds as they approach their rut which is in the autumn, but their typical mature antlers are much more vertical with less spread than the larger reds and almost never bear more than 4 points per side. Sika deer are generally darker than common coated fallow and have a distinctive white metatarsal patch on the back legs.
They are a herding species and the two separated sex groups break up for the rut as the stags hold their rutting stands and round up or draw in hinds.
Two sika stags, showing their darker appearance than reds and lightening bolt style antlers.
They are very common in the New Forest and most of Scotland, parts of Ireland also. The stags way 70 kg mature but sometimes more and does often much less. The natural lifespan for sika can be as much as 18 years but usually less. They will browse some agricultural crops, grass, tree shoots, small branches, bark and the like, this puts their structured management at risk in areas of high valued production. There is great sporting value in sika and this can not only provide income but will go a long way to offsetting their detriment to farmers and foresters alike.
One calf per year is normal from all mature hinds, which gives them a fecundity rate of 0.9. The open season for the stags in England 1st august to 31st April and hinds 1st November to 31st March. Sika deer tend to prefer acidic soils but with their range spreading they are accepting variances of soil without too much of a challenge.
Sika make a variety of noises from a sort of clicking all the way to high pitch squeals, which can be frightening to the unacquainted, much like a calling vixen can be.
We love our wildlife and we love our deer. There are so many benefits to working with the fantastic variety of deer we have in the UK. Embracing their presence, learning their behaviors, preserving their habitats and sharing our land with them, is the key to cohabitation.
