Things are getting violent at Bushy Park in the genteel London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. The park is the second largest Royal Park in Greater London and covers over 1,000 acres. It is also home to over 320 red and fallow deer, and as you can see from this video clip, intense confrontations can break out. Let’s learn more about this extraordinary sight!
Red Deer in Bushy Park
The deer species in the clip are red deer, and they are the largest native mammal in the British Isles. The males have antlers, which they start to grow in spring and shed at the end of winter. Antlers grow at an incredible rate of just under an inch a day! At first, they are covered in a velvet-like material that protects them as they grow, but this velvet wears off by the time rutting season begins in September.
Rutting Season
Pumped full of testosterone, the stags compete to mate with females during the rutting season. Rutting is as much about noise as physical confrontation, and in this clip, you can hear the deer roaring. The louder the roar, the more attractive they are to the females. Rut activity peaks during the three hours after dawn and before dusk.
Before a physical confrontation, stags will start by circling each other and sizing each other up. When one senses that he has the upper hand, he will charge headfirst at the other one, and they will lock horns. This also makes a lot of noise! Older deer tend to have heavier and sharper antlers, but that is no guarantee of a win.
And the Winner Is…
Red deer antlers can cause serious injuries.
©erremmo.com/Shutterstock.com
Reproductive behavior is different in each deer species; here, we will focus on the red deer in the clip. The red deer rut begins in Bushy Park in late September and lasts until around early November. A single large stag forms a harem consisting of several females, over whom he has exclusive mating rights.
The deer gather together, and the biggest stags hold harems in the middle of the rut. The smaller stags remain on the outskirts, hoping for an opportunity to mate with the females, while the dominant stag is either engaged in a fight or exhausted after one. During the fight itself, the rival stags walk parallel to each other, assessing the strength of their opponent. They may thrash the ground with their antlers. The fight itself is essentially a shoving match!
The red deer that wins the fight gets to mate with the females, but the risks are high. Red deer have lost eyes and have even suffered a punctured rib in this process. Also, those stags that are weakened from the rut have a higher chance of dying of fatigue and starvation. This process ensures that only the strongest stags contribute to the next generation.
