The animal’s coat is reddish brown. There is a white patch on the rump. The red deer is four to five feet (1.2 to 1.5 m) at the shoulder and weighs 220 to 550 pounds (100 to 250 kg). The adult male is called a stag or hart; the adult female is called a hind.
Red deer live in herds, but the males associate with the females only during the breeding season, which occurs in August or September. During the breeding season the males, bellowing loudly, fight each other to determine which will mate with the best females. Each female bears one white-spotted fawn after a gestation period of eight months. The average lifespan of the red deer is 16 years.
The natural habitat of the red deer is forest, but as the great forests of Britain were felled over the centuries, most of them were forced to live on exposed moorland, moving into wooded plantations during severe winter weather.
The deer are browsers by nature, pulling off leaves from oak, birch and rowan trees. They will also eat twigs, ivy and lichen from trees, especially during the winter. In open habitats, the deer become mainly grazers, cropping grass and browsing from small shrubs such as heather. Feeding takes place mainly during the early morning and evening, the deer resting and ruminating (chewing the cud) by day.
The red deer has always been hunted by man for its meat, known as venison, and for sport. In Roman times, coaches were pulled by teams of red deer during ceremonial processions connected with the worship of Diana, the goddess of hunting.
Today, man is the adult deer’s only predator. Calves are sometimes taken by carnivores such as foxes, Scottish wild cats and golden eagles, but the wolf, which may well have once been the red deer’s main predator, became extinct in Britain during the 18th Century.
Posta un commento