Elephant Puppets Encounter With A Rutting Fallow Deer.🦌
4Elephant Puppet Gets in Between Rutting Fallow Deer. 🦌
0:00 The Intro
0:12 The Rutting Fallow Deer
1:25 The End
The fallow deer is an elegant, medium-sized deer, with a typically spotted coat. Males have broad, palmate antlers. During the autumnal breeding season, known as the 'rut', males make a loud belly belch to proclaim their territory and fight over the females. This display may involve groaning and stylised walking, but often results in dangerous, physical contact as they lock antlers. The resulting fawns are born the following summer. The fallow deer is variable in colour, but is mostly pale gingery-brown, with white spots on the back, a characteristic black and white tail and a white rump patch outlined in black. Some animals are darker brown without any spots, and others are very pale, almost white.
facts about the Fallow Deer Rut – late September to early November
The fallow deer (Dama dama) is an ungulate which employs an unusual strategies for the rut. This strategy is the creation of a lek, a display area presented to the females where the males gather and allow the females to choose a mate based upon their traits alone while reducing predation risk, but the males will tend to stay in the lek to court other females until the end of the rutting season.[23] However, male fallow deer which are unsuccessful in mating will leave the lek sooner than other males and they will adopt other strategies to compensate for their lack of mating success in the lek. Furthermore, the duration spent in the lek is positively correlated with the behavioural traits of male display frequency and aggression, male hierarchical position and secondary body characteristics such as antler size.[24] Overall, lekking species such as the fallow deer have a short intense rutting season where the males face rival males for competition, territory defence and management of females within their territory.
what to do during the fallow deer rut.
Keep your distance! Do not approach any deer to within closer than 50m, and stay at least 100m from rutting deer.
Be inconspicuous – use binoculars for close up viewing.
Pay special attention to any signs put up by the park authorities and follow their advice.
If there are a large number of people present, do not surround the deer as it may make them nervous. Always leave them an open line of retreat if they need it.
Take special care not to intrude on rutting male deer (particularly red stags or fallow bucks) which may be fighting, roaring, displaying or otherwise defending their hinds. They may see you as another intruder who needs to be repelled.
If you have a dog, it is best to leave it at home when the park deer are rutting or at times when recently born calves may be present, usually during the spring and early summer. If you have your dog with you, keep it on a lead and under close control.
In the unlikely event that you are threatened or attacked, try to put a barrier such a vehicle or substantial tree between yourself and the deer. If you can, climb a tree to get out of reach. If you have a dog with you, let it run free – it will be more capable of escaping when unrestrained, and may actually be the reason that the deer has become agitated in the first place.
If a deer starts walking parallel to you and glancing at you out of the corner of its eye (see picture), it is a sign that it may be considering you as a threat - move away immediately.
If you find a deer advancing towards you or acting in a threatening manner, do not shout or wave at it. Back off slowly if possible; the deer may be satisfied that you have left its personal zone. Do not run, though, as this may trigger the animal into chasing you. Do not roll into a ball where you are; this may increase the risk of attack.
Rutting stags, in particular, are often pumped up with testosterone, and you could be putting yourself at risk. There have been a number of cases where visitors to parks have suffered injuries which might have been avoided.
during the rut in October, fallow bucks become territorial, groaning and defending a rutting stand where the does visit them to mate. Breeding: Fawns are born in June-July, after a gestation of 234 days. They are weaned by the time of the next rut,