Red Deer

The Monarch of the Glen

The red deer (Cervus elaphus) is the UK’s largest land mammal. A stag, as males are called, weighs 90 to 190 kg and stands 1.07 to 1.37 m tall at the shoulder. A hind, the female, weighs 63 to 120 kg. Red deer in woods are bigger than deer in open country, because the food in woods is better.

The species ranges across most of Europe, the Caucasus, Asia Minor and Iran, and into the Atlas Mountains of north-west Africa. In England and southern Scotland it prefers woodland, but it can adapt to open moor and hills. Wild red deer average 10 to 11 years, and captive ones live about as long. One captive animal reached about 31.5 years.

A Crown That Regrows

Stags carry antlers, and hinds do not. A stag’s antlers start with just two points and add branches as he ages, up to 16 in most cases. He drops them each year in March or April. By August or September a full new set has grown back.

The Rut

From late September to November comes the rut, the mating season. Stags roar and walk side by side to show dominance.

Fights are a last resort Serious injury and death can result from fighting, but this only occurs between stags of similar size that cannot assess dominance by any of the other means.

When two evenly matched stags will not give way, they lock antlers and push and twist until the weaker one flees. In rich woodland, stags can be sexually mature before they turn two, but only stags over five years old tend to mate. Hinds make noise too. They bark when alarmed and moo when searching for their young. After an eight-month pregnancy, a hind in woodland gives birth to a single calf between mid-May and mid-July.

Grazers With a Long History

Grass is the main food, along with sedges, rushes, herbs, shrubs and tree shoots. Adults in Britain have no natural predators. Foxes and golden eagles may take young calves, which are born with a spotted coat as camouflage.

Red deer are old neighbours of people. Cave art in Europe shows them. The IUCN rates the species Least Concern.