Red Deer

 

hind and fawn 150x150 Red Deer

Red hind and Fawn

Red Deer from English and Scottish stock were first liberated for sport near Nelson in 1851. Since then well over 100 liberations were made up to 1924. The Red Deer is one of the largest deer species. Stags are typically 175–230 cm long and weigh in at approx 160–240 kg (350–530 lbs); the female is 160–210 cm and weighs 120–170 kg (264–374 lbs). These figures are for european red deer, stags in New Zealand can get very large but are in general a bit smaller than the values stated. Red Deer tend to be reddish-brown in their summer coats but get darker in their winter coat. The males grow a short neck mane during the autumn.

During the Red Deer Roar or “rut” mature stags compete for the attention of females and will then try to protect hinds that they attract from rival stags. Rival stags will challenge other stags by bellowing and walking in parallel. In this way they assess each other. If neither stag backs down they will fight. Red deer are both browsers and grazers. If there is open grass around they will usually come out to feed on this if hunter pressure is not high. However, they are also content to just browse in areas where there is low to no grassland available. Red deer are distributed throughout most of New Zealand and are New Zealands most hunted big game animal. 

The dominant stags follow groups of hinds during the rut, which in New Zealand is late march to late april. Stags will hold a harem of up to 20 hinds. Only mature stags hold harems and breeding success peaks at about 8 years of age. Younger Stags dont usually hold harems and spend the majority of their time at the periphery of dominant stags harems.

 

stag 300x225 Red Deer

Rutting stag

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

stag2 200x300 Red Deer

Roaring Red

 

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This post was written by admin on February 11, 2009 Comments Off