Peter Green Deer parks are recorded in ancient Greece, Persia and China. There are hints of enclosed menageries, including those with deer, in Egyptian hieroglyphs. Across Europe, deer have been kept in large enclosures since at least Saxon times, and probably earlier. Originally, these were the hunting reserves of the aristocracy, but from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, they increasingly became maintained for amenity and appearance, as well as for sport (Fletcher 2011). The enclosed deer park was a distinctive feature of Tudor and Jacobean England; Christopher Saxton’s county maps of the late sixteenth century show over 700 deer parks and contemporary records indicate that by then numbers had declined considerably from medieval times (Whitehead 1950). Deer parks were also a ready source of fresh meat at a time when meat could only be preserved by salting. In the twenty-first century, the United Kingdom is still unusual amongst European countries in the number of ancient and heritage deer parks that survive. The British Deer Society database of enclosed and captive deer had records of 183 enclosed deer parks in September 2024 (https://bds.org.uk/science-research/deer-surveys/enclosed-captive-deer-survey/). Some of these are open to the public, or in public ownership; many are in private hands. There were also 68 additional properties that kept deer as a ‘visitor attraction’ and a further 76 that considered themselves a deer ‘rescue centre or sanctuary’. This total of 327 places where deer were kept within a deer-proof boundary did not include commercial deer farms or licensed zoological collections. After the Second World War, Whitehead (1950) reported that there were only 150 parks with deer in England and he included some zoos and islands such as Lundy in his list. Numbers have therefore increased considerably since then. The management and husbandry of deer in parks depend upon their size, the nature of the habitat and the number of deer maintained within the fence or wall. Small parks of less than 10 ha are better considered in the same way as large paddocks in zoos: it is likely that there will be insufficient natural forage and browsing to maintain more than a handful of deer. If more deer are kept in such parks, year-round feeding with both conserved forage and concentrates will be necessary. In some small parks in urban or situations, breeding is restricted by vasectomising of the males because population control by culling is unacceptable or impracticable. Some contain only non-breeding females. Deer in such metropolitan parks can become very tame. In larger parks and especially in the ancient heritage parks of the United Kingdom, the deer are treated much more as truly wild creatures; they rely upon the parkland habitat for sustenance for most of the year, with only limited supplementary feeding in the winter. In the overwhelming majority of such parks, they are not gathered or handled for husbandry purposes. Males compete in the rut for the right to hold harems and mate with females. Young deer are not artificially weaned or fattened in groups. Numbers are controlled by shooting in the park using a hunting rifle and the venison carcases enter the human food chain as wild game, not as farmed livestock. These are the features that distinguish deer parks from deer farms, although the distinction is not established in statutory regulation (at least, not in the United Kingdom, see below). The majority of deer parks in the United Kingdom hold fallow deer (Dama dama) and have done so since medieval times. These must have been introductions to these parks, as fallow deer are not indigenous to northern Europe but were brought north from their Mediterranean homelands first by the Romans and subsequently by the Normans. Red deer (Cervus elaphus) are present in many parks, often in conjunction with fallow deer. Some English parks dating from Saxon and early medieval times were created when landowners were given Royal assent to ‘empark’ or fence-in tracts of land for hunting purposes. These parks first included red deer, wild boar and occasionally wild cattle; many of them later acquired fallow deer as the fashion for these smaller, prettier deer spread across Europe. The presence of red deer in many contemporary parks is not, however, evidence of red deer lineages stretching back to the first emparkments. It is testimony to the enthusiasm for all things Caledonian that gripped the Victorian age when the Queen and many of her wealthy peers brought Scottish red deer to their deer parks, which had been exclusively fallow deer parks for centuries. Sika deer (Cervus nippon) were introduced to some parks from mid-Victorian times onwards. The taxonomy and genetics of sika deer are confused. Although some authorities recognise several subspecies, the three varieties found in English and Irish parks, Japanese, Manchurian and Formosan, are perhaps best regarded as races of C. nippon, rather than discrete subspecies. Few parks hold sika by themselves; they are usually present with fallow or red deer, or both. Sika are notoriously good at maintaining body condition when other species are struggling; obesity is more of a feature with sika than ill-thrift. Other, more exotic species are present in a small number of parks: axis (Axis axis), hog deer (Axis porcinus), barasingha (Rucervus duvaucelii) and Père David’s deer (Elaphurus davidianus) may all be kept as deliberate features of a deer park. With the exception of the hog deer, all the deer kept intentionally in parks are gregarious, polygynous species with established social structures and hierarchies within the social units. These are usually based upon natal bands led by dominant females. There are three other deer species that are present in many deer parks in the United Kingdom, although they are there simply because they occur as free-living wild animals in the locality. All three are more solitary and territorial than the larger gregarious species. Roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) are present in many deer parks across the United Kingdom and numbers are increasing. Reeves’ muntjac (Muntiacus reevesi) are widespread in middle and southern England, including in deer parks, and are colonising northern England and Ireland. Water deer (Hydropotes inermis) are locally common in eastern England and are present in several parks. Water deer may occasionally be considered as part of the deer park exhibition fauna, but may also, like the roe and muntjac, simply be tolerated because of the challenges of eliminating them. All three species are small and pass easily through fences and gates that are impassable to the larger deer. Their presence should be considered when dealing with infectious or contagious diseases and when formulating biosecurity plans. One of the cardinal features of a deer park is that deer are kept at population densities that exceed those normally found in the open landscape. Park herds may number over one thousand animals in the largest parks; herds of two to four hundred are more common. Absolute numbers have little meaning without reference to the character of the park and the amount of natural forage available to the deer. Most deer parks consist of a mosaic of open pasture, mature specimen trees, wood pasture and stands of woodland or copses. There may be problems with invasive species such as bracken (Pteridium aquilinum) and bramble (Rubus vestitus sp.). Ancient heritage parks often contain many veteran trees; oaks (Quercus sp.), beech (Fagus sylvatica), chestnut (Castanea sativa) and horse chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum) all yield autumn fruits that are invaluable in supporting the deer in the autumn. In calculating the deer population that a park may support with or without supplementary feeding in the winter, only the area of productive grassland should be counted. Woodland, stands of bracken or bramble, marginal swamp land, lakes and other ornamental features must all be excluded from the calculation. If a fallow deer or sika deer is counted as one deer stock unit (DSU) and a red deer is counted as two, most UK deer parks can support 2 DSU/ha of grass without any supplementary winter feeding and may support up to 5 or 6 DSU/ha if the deer are provided with their maintenance requirements between November and March (Putman and Langbein 1992, 2003). These numbers apply to the population of deer after the seasonal cull and before the arrival of any calves or fawns. The whole population should be counted, irrespective of age and sex. If the population rises above 6 DSU/ha of grass, the park is probably overstocked and likely to experience problems. In parks where deficiencies of copper or selenium are detected, population densities must be lowered. If deer are kept at densities of 3–6 DSU/ha of grass, some supplementary winter feeding will be required. Conserved forage (hay, silage, haylage) is usually only eaten when all the standing hay in the grassland sward has been consumed and there is little natural forage in the park. Haylage and silage are more palatable to deer than hay, which is often pulled from the feeder and simply used as bedding. The provision of haylage or silage alone will be insufficient to support the deer and must be supplemented with either roots, cereals or proprietary rolls. Of the possible root crops, fodder beet is best because of its nutritional value and prolonged keeping qualities. Carrots, potatoes, turnips or mangolds may also be used; carrots and potatoes do not store as well as beet, turnips or mangolds. All should be fed from no later than early November at a rate of 1 kg/day per fallow deer and 2 kg/day per red deer. Whole maize kernels, whole or crushed barley and proprietary livestock rolls or nuts can substitute for roots. These are fed at a rate of 200 g/day per deer for fallow deer and 400 g/day per deer for red deer. Cattle rolls or nuts are preferable to sheep feed because sheep nuts contain too little copper. Deer rolls or nuts are becoming more widely available as numbers of deer farming enterprises increase. Deer-specific feeds have a higher trace element and mineral content than even cattle feed, but are more expensive than cattle equivalents. Whatever the nature of the winter feed, it is essential to provide the feed in long lines and preferably at several feed sites in the park. It is a serious mistake to dump the feed in piles or to use only a few troughs, filled to capacity. Unless the feed is thinly spread in long lines, there is a significant risk of the dominant animals overgorging and suffering fatal rumen acidosis. This is a particular problem with dominant fallow master bucks. Winter feeding should begin in early November, irrespective of the weather, and should continue until spring grass comes through in late March or April. If the deer are not interested in the feed in November, it is a mistake to stop offering it. The amount of feed offered may be reduced in November until it is all being consumed each day, then increased again, but pre-Christmas feeding is the key to preventing problems later in the winter. Only a handful of deer parks have the infrastructure or facilities to gather the deer; in most parks, the deer are only handled when they are dead. The presence of yards, races and equipment to handle the deer may lead the statutory authorities, such as the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) in the United Kingdom, to consider the property as a deer farm, not a park. This brings significant extra administrative and management responsibilities to the park owner. Annual routine management of the deer park therefore consists of seasonal culling, winter feeding and pasture management to maximise grass production. Mid-summer mowing of the park pasture greatly increases productivity, although unfortunately it is not permitted under some statutory countryside stewardship or land management schemes. Invasive species, especially bracken, can become problematic and reduce the amount of available pasture. The use of the selective herbicide asulam for bracken control has been prohibited in the European Union and the United Kingdom, although it remains available elsewhere. Bracken can be controlled by crushing or rolling, but this must be done in early summer when fronds are fresh and succulent. This is also when fawns and calves use stands of bracken for cover in the first two weeks of life. Deer parks have inadvertently killed significant numbers of fawns and calves by rolling bracken in June and July. Although much less nutritious than graminoids, bracken forms up to 50% of the green forage intake of fallow deer in the summer in parks where it is abundant. Red deer hinds also consume bracken, whilst stags eat hardly any (Bullock and Vernon 1992). Deer seem therefore to have some tolerance of the hydrogen cyanide and thiaminase in bracken that makes it toxic to domestic livestock. One of the regular tasks of the deer park manager is the inspection of boundary fences and walls. Wind-blown trees pose the greatest risk of escape, especially if they are in leaf. Not only will a large tree bring down the fence, but the canopy at ground level will be attractive to the deer, which will congregate to browse the leaves and twigs at the point where the fence is breached. If deer do escape, they rarely go very far in the first instance and can often be walked back into the park if the breach in the fence is enlarged and the fallen tree dragged back into the park. The release of sika deer (and other exotic species) is now unlawful in the United Kingdom. If sika deer escape and cannot be brought back to the park, they must be culled. Numbers of deer in the park are controlled by culling. In the United Kingdom, deer in deer parks come under the same legislative framework as free-living wild deer with respect to legal rifle calibres, shooting at night and shooting out of season. Most park deer are shot in the head with a deer-legal high-velocity rifle. They should then be bled out by opening up the great vessels in the thoracic inlet. The aim point for humane and efficient head shooting is the brain and brain stem: externally this requires a point of impact level with the base of the ears. Shooting too low risks impact with the teeth, which will cause fragmentation of the bullet and may not destroy the cerebrum or brainstem and result in wounded deer. A correct bullet placement will render the deer instantly insensible and will destroy the respiratory centre in the brainstem. The deer will fall to the ground and stop breathing; even so, it is important to be aware that cardiac activity will continue for 10–15 minutes, during which time spinal reflexes will remain. Head-shot deer that are not exsanguinated will, therefore, respond to stimulation of the limbs and may kick or withdraw their legs if handled. Rapid bleeding is therefore essential and also improves meat quality, especially of fallow venison (Mulley et al. 2010).
Chapter 5
Deer in Deer Parks
The Species in Deer Parks
Population Densities
Supplementary Winter Feeding
Routine Park Management
Culling
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