The Red Deer is Britain's largest native land mammal, standing up to 1.5m at the shoulder.
Male Red Deer are distinguished from the females the Hind featured here by their branched antlers, which they lose and re-grow each year.
For centuries, the wild deer of Britain were reserved exclusively for royalty to hunt. William the Conqueror introduced the death penalty for killing a deer, and a sentence of maiming for attempting to kill a deer. These harsh penalties were not abolished until the reign of Henry III, although deer were still preserved by law for the sport of the monarch until the nineteenth century. The only other enemies of deer - the bear, wolf and lynx - have all been exterminated, in the U.K
SPECIES There are seven species of deer living wild in Britain. The Red Deer and the Roe Deer are native species. Fallow Deer were introduced by the Romans and, since the seventeenth century, have been joined by three other non-native species: Sika, Muntjac and Chinese Water Deer which have escaped from parks. In addition, a herd of Reindeer was established in Scotland in 1952.
Most of the Red Deer in Britain are found in Scotland, but there are significant wild populations in south-west and north-west England, East Anglia and the north Midlands. Red deer can interbreed with the introduced Japanese sika deer and in some areas, hybrids are common.
Red Deer, Roe Deer and Melanistic Fallow Deer can be found on the reserves and also like this one in the wild
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{K:150877} 11/15/2004
