The 6 Species of British Deer

Roe Deer

The European Roe Deer (Capreolus capreolus) is a deer species of Europe and Asia Minor. There is a separate species known as the Siberian Roe Deer (Capreolus pygargus) that is found from the Ural Mountains to as far east as China and Siberia. The two species meet at the Caucasus Mountains, with the European species occupying the southern flank of the mountain ranges and adjacent Asia Minor and the Siberian species occupying the northern flank of the mountain ranges. Within Europe, the European Roe Deer occurs in most areas, with the exception of northern Scandinavia and some of the islands, notably Iceland, Ireland, and the Mediterranean Sea islands; in the Mediterranean region it is largely confined to mountainous regions, and is absent or rare at low levels.

Roe Deer in a grassland area.

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Roe Deer in a grassland area.

The Roe Deer is a relatively small deer, with a body length of 95-135 cm, a shoulder height of 65-75 cm, and a weight of 15-30 kg. It has rather short, erect antlers and a reddish body with a grey face. Its hide is golden red in summer, darkening to brown or even black in winter, with lighter undersides and a white rump patch; the tail is very short (2-3 cm), and barely visible. Only the males have antlers, which are lost during winter, but which re-grow in time for the mating season. The first and second set of antlers are unbranched and short (5-12 cm), while older bucks in good conditions develop antlers up to 20-25 cm long with two or three, rarely even four, points. When the male's antlers begin to regrow, they are covered in a thin layer of velvet-like fur which disappears later on after the hair's blood supply is lost. Males may speed up the process by rubbing their antlers on trees, so that their antlers are hard and stiff for the duels during the mating season. Roebucks are the only type of deer that can regrow their antlers during winter. It attains a maximum life span (in the wild) of three to ten years. The Roe Deer spends most of its life alone, preferring to live solitary except when mating during the breeding season.

The Roe Deer is primarily a crepuscular, very quick and graceful, living on high ground or mountains, although it may venture to grasslands and sparse forests. It feeds mainly on grass, leaves, berries and young shoots. When alarmed, it will bark a sound much like a dog and flash out its white rump patch. Rump patches differ between the sexes, with the white rump patches heart-shaped on females and kidney-shaped on males. Males may also bark when attracting mates during the breeding season, often luring multiple does into their territory.

Roe Deer fawn, aged between 2-3 weeks old.

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Roe Deer fawn, aged between 2-3 weeks old.

The polygamous Roe Deer males clash over territory in early summer and mate in early fall. During courtship, when the males chase the females, they often flatten the underbrush leaving behind areas of the forest in the shape of a figure eight called 'roe rings'. Males may also use their antlers to shovel around fallen folliage and dirt as a way of attracting a mate. Roebucks enter rutting inappetance during the July and August breeding season. Females are monoestrous and after delayed implantation usually give birth the following June, after a seven-month gestation period, typically to two spotted kids of opposite sexes. The kids remain hidden in long grass from predators until they are ready to join the rest of the herd; they are suckled by their mother several times a day for around three months. Young female Roe Deer can begin to reproduce when they are around 16 months old.

Red Deer

Red deer are found in nearly every country in Europe.

The red deer is Britain's largest native land mammal, and can reach 1.5 m (5 ft) at the shoulder.

Apart from man, brown bears, wolves and Eurasian lynx prey on red deer in Europe, though all of these natural predators are extinct in Britain. Wild boars sometimes prey on fawns.

The Irish pound coin featured a large red deer.

In the UK any male Red Deer under 4 years old is called a Brocket, 4 year old males are called Staggarts, 5 year olds - "Warrantable Stags" and after that they are called Hart Royals.

Red deer first appear in fossil records around 13 million years ago[citation needed] in Eurasia somewhere around lowlands and mountain ranges of Central Asia and Western China.

For centuries, the wild deer of Britain were reserved exclusively for royalty to hunt. William I of England introduced the death penalty for killing a deer, and a sentence of maiming for attempting to kill a deer. These harsh penalties were abolished during the reign of Henry III, although deer were still preserved by law for the sport of the monarch until the 19th century.

Fallow Deer

The male is a buck, the female is a doe, and the young a fawn. Bucks are 140-160 cm long and 90-100 cm shoulder height, and 60-85 kg in weight; does are 130-150 cm long and 75-85 cm shoulder height, and 30-50 kg in weight. Fawns are born in spring at about 30 cm and weigh around 4.5 kg. The life span is around 12 years.

Albinistic variant of Fallow Deer, in Beijing Zoo

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Albinistic variant of Fallow Deer, in Beijing Zoo

The species is very variable in colour, with four main variants, "common", "menil", "melanistic" and "albinistic". The common form has a brown coat with white mottles that are most pronounced in summer with a much darker coat in the winter. The albinistic is the lightest coloured, almost white; common and menil are darker, and melanistic is very dark, even black (easily confused with the Sika Deer). Most herds consist of the common form but have menil form and melanistic form animals amongst them (the three groups do not stay separate and interbreed readily).

Only bucks have antlers, these are broad and shovel-shaped. They are grazing animals; their preferred habitat is mixed woodland and open grassland. During the rut in October bucks will spead out and females move between them, at this time of year fallow deer are relatively ungrouped compared to the rest of the year when they try to stay together in groups of up to 150.

Sika Deer

The Sika Deer (Cervus nippon) is a typical member of the family Cervidae that is closely related to the Red Deer and Wapiti and inhabit mixed coniferous and deciduous forests to the north, and mixed subtropical evergreen forests to the south. It is native to much of East Asia (absent from Hainan Island and the Ussuri Region of Siberia (also known as the Russian Far East), ranging from The Ussuri Region of Siberia southwards towards Korea, Manchuria and Northern and Southern China, with a possibly isolated population in Vietnam. It is also native to Taiwan and Japan and were possibly introduced to some other smaller western Pacific islands. The largest sika deer (occur to the north) are the Dybowski's Sika Deer (C. n. hortulorum) of Manchuria and Ussuri Region, and the Hokkaido Sika Deer (C. n. yesoensis) of Hokkaido Island in Japan. The Kerama Sika Deer (C. n. keramae) of the Ryukyu Islands is one of the smallest, and unlike other subspecies, the whole body (including the rump patch) is dark brown. The Formosan Sika Deer (C. n. taioanus) is rather large for an island form being larger than the Kerama Sika Deer and similar in size to deer from Southern China. There are several geographically separated subspecies, but due to the long history of the velvet antler trade (for medicinal values) and farming of Sika deer for antler production in much of China, Mongolia, and Siberia, the integrity of these subspecies is questionable as many populations have already mixed gene pools. Other deer raised for antler trade were various Asian Red Deer/Wapiti subspecies. The only exceptions are possibly the Dybowski's sika deer of Manchuria and Siberia, and the sika deer subspecies that survive in Japan and Taiwan (Note: Sika Deer and Sambar Deer have been farmed for velvet antlers in Taiwan).

Sika Deer are widespread in Japan, and readily become tame; at one time they were regarded as sacred. The largest wild populations are in the northern island of Hokkaido. Following Japanese settlement of Hokkaido in the latter half of the 19th century, the deer there were hunted almost to the point of extinction, and were reduced to a few small populations. Legal protection put in place in the mid 20th century was followed by rapid population recovery from the 1950s to the 1980s. In the absence of the natural predators (wolves, now extinct in Japan), some hunting is now encouraged in order to stabilize the population and limit the agricultural damage done by the deer. The present Hokkaido deer population is still concentrated in the eastern half of the island, and many deer that frequent other parts of the island migrate back to this area during the winter months.

Deer are also present in the more populated islands of Japan: for example, in the ancient capital city of Nara, as well as the sacred island of Miyajima, they wander at will among the temples, and are much photographed (and fed) by tourists. In other parts of Asia, the deer have also been extensively hunted, and legal protection has been less effective, so that several populations and subspecies are now endangered.

Sika Deer have been introduced into a number of other countries including Australia, Austria, Denmark, Germany, Britain, France, Ireland, Jolo Island (south of the Philippines), New Zealand, Poland, Morocco and the United States (Maryland). In many cases they were originally introduced as ornamental animals in parkland, but have established themselves in the wild.

Dybowski's Sika Deer (C. n. dybowskii)

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Dybowski's Sika Deer (C. n. dybowskii)

In Britain several distinct wild populations now exist. Some of these are in isolated areas, for example on the island of Lundy, but others are contiguous with populations of the native Red Deer. Since the two species hybridise, this is a serious conservation concern.

Sika, romanized shika in the Hepburn system, is the Japanese word for deer in general. The full Japanese word for Cervus nippon is nihonjika.

Dybowski's sika deer (Cervus nippon dybowskii) and Formosan sika deer (Cervus nippon taioanus) are highly endangered and possibly already extinct in the wild. They can be found in several zoos and are being kept alive by a captive-management program.

The Sitka Deer is a subspecies of Black-Tailed Deer and Mule Deer and therefore, a different species.

Muntjac

Muntjac are deer of the genus Muntiacus, also known as Barking Deer. Muntjac are the oldest known deer, appearing 15-35 million years ago, with remains found in Miocene deposits in France and Germany.

The present-day species are native to Southeast Asia and can be found from India to southeast China, Taiwan and Indonesian islands. Reeves's Muntjac has been introduced to England and is now common in some areas there. Being tropical, there is no seasonal rut and mating can take place at any time of year, a behaviour retained by populations introduced to temperate countries. Males have short antlers which can regrow but tend to fight with their tusks (downward pointing canine teeth) for territory.

Muntjac are of great interest in evolutionary studies because of their dramatic chromosome variations and recent discoveries of several new species.

Chinese Water Deer

The Water is superficially more similar to a musk deer than a true deer (cervidae) but it is classified as a cervid despite having tusks (downward-pointing canine teeth) instead of antlers and other anatomical anomalies. There are two subspecies: the Chinese Water Deer (Hydropotes inermis inermis) and the Korean Water Deer (Hydropotes inermis argyropus).

Water deer are usually solitary (except during the rut), occasionally forming small groups. They are fairly small (50cm at the shoulder) and good swimmers. They are shy animals whose habitat is the dense vegetation of marshes, making study difficult. Four to five young are born at a time, far more than usual for deer.

The Korean subspecies is found in both North and South Korea and the population appears healthy. The Chinese subspecies is restricted to several small ranges around the Dongting, Poyang and Taihu lakes along the Yangtze, and in nearby coastal areas including on the Zhoushan islands. It appears reasonably secure within its range. Approximately 10% of Chinese Water Deer are a wild population living around the Norfolk Broads in the UK, having escaped from Whipsnade Wild Animal Park and Woburn Abbey during the 20th century. There is also a small wild poplulation in France.