Reindeer are native to all of British so much that when the North Sea was dry. The culture between England, Netherlands and Denmark where called the reindeer Culture.
Hard to argue because all three can/will target pets, livestock, & even small children if given the chance. Predator reintroductions are incredibly controversial almost everywhere, but especially in Britain where they were locally extirpated specifically because of how much they clashed with the local people. Still, I think that limited reintroductions in more remote areas of the Scottish Highlands should be considered. A few lost sheep isn't sufficient reason to leave the ecosystem in a state of perpetual imbalance since the UK's government is also vociferously anti-hunting & anti-firearm as well.
I agree, the only problem is here in the UK we don't have enough wild space to support large land predators, although if we increased the size of some habitats and connected them it is possible that the Eurasian lynx could be reintroduced, as they are smaller than bears and don't require as much space as a wolf pack.
Where I come from in East Anglia there are huge amounts of Muntjac around, on the seldom.used back roads I have seen groups numbering into the hundreds destroying fields, proper pest species
I love reindeer and Fallow Deer. The Wapiti(American Elk not to be confused with Moose) are the most majestic American deer and have been reintroduced in some areas east of the Mississippi River. In my State of Maryland a few Sitka and Fallow deer have been introduced.
We have a small population of feral Muntjac deer around Pannal North Yorkshire which is open grassland with scattered woods They are very shy and unfortunately usually seen as roadkill
It's easy to underestimate the ferocity of roe deer. They look harmless, but during rutting season can cause you a lot of damage if you don't give them a wide berth.
I love the mating call of a stag, it sounds so awesome. It’s funny because red deer look like mini elk but the mating calls of both species look like they should be swapped
Lovely informative video Tsuki !!🙂🙂. I’ve only seen the Fallow Deer and the Red Deer, but only because I’ve seen them in one of the Royal Parks (Bushy Park).
Roe deer and red deer are native,muntjac,sika and chinese Waters deer are introduced invasive species while fallow deer and reindeer lived in Ireland and UK during pleistocene and then went extinct so they coud be considered as reintroduced species.
I've seen plenty of roe and red deer in the wild (though there's were on a large stretch of managed land), I've seen a fair few deer park farrow deer and I've seen a single vampire deer while out for a walk on local wetlands - and wasn't that a surprise! I've not knowingly seen the others though. I have the advantage of having grown up next door to a guy who manages quite a bit of Scottish land and likes to whittle; so while I have never seen one of our reindeer in person I have seen the odd bit of decor in his mothers house that they help grow.
@Tsuki, my friend, I really think we should reintroduce the wolf, bear, and lynx to Britain to help control the large numbers of native/ non native deer species living in the UK in the near future
I think in some areas it would be possible to reintroduce wolves and lynx but i think that so many people would complain and go mad. People have gotten so used to having no dangerous animals in the UK and like 70% of land is farmland so farmers would constantly complain. I think the UK is in dire need of rewilding but it's a very controversial topic
@@skaldlouiscyphre2453 If they are going to reintroduce wolves to the UK, it would likely be wolves from other parts of Europe (As it should be) instead of a hybrid animal from North America
@@moosehunter2477 Ideally you'd introduce examples that are best suited to surviving in the new environment without creating human conflicts, rather than trying to reintroduce the most closely related existing population.
During covid when I was a courier in arrochar (not far from Glasgow) due to not many people leaving their houses the deer would come right into town, some of the stags were massive
My family and I mainly see Roe Deer's Muntjac's and Water Deer in our local area, and whil we were out on a walk on New Year's Day, we spotted what we now presumed to be a Rough Legged Buzzard.
Have seen all 6 in, or close to the New Forest where I live. The water deer was a surprise, I saw a small, fluffy deer by the road (dead), then saw 3 in a field on the Dorset/Wiltshire border a couple of miles later.
Brummie here, I saw like 3-4 very small, almost badger sized deer by the QE hospital. This was a few years back but its a residential area with a lot of greenery. I thought I was seeing things but now I'm not so sure 😅
Lol just behind the QE theres a nature reserve called deers leap wood but I was under the impression most of the deer in the west mids were on cannock chase
It wouldn’t surprise, as their was a sizeable population of muntjac at Whittington. Cannock chase has a massive population of deer, including red dear. That spreads out into the local areas. By Chase water, they aren’t even scared of people anymore. You can walk up to them and feed them.
One of the last places on Earth to host Chinese Water Deer or the Nene & it's an island in Northern Europe. Britain is truly a bizarre place when you really think about it. On one hand its ecosystem has been intensively managed for centuries to the point where many endemics have died out, but on the other it's home to wildlife that have virtually disappeared in their native ranges.
In Canada our Wapaiti were called Red Deer by the early fur traders and numerous geographic features have that name to this day. Since a large number of the fur traders were Scots and familiar with the Red deer in the old country it shows how similar the two are. The name elk came to us from the Yankees and it’s a shame that we continue to use it .
As a dutch. I can tell you that deer species as the fallow and the red deer are now elligal in the netherlands to own them at deer parks. They find it pathic, and they also say "no exotic pets". But they made an exception with the chinese water deer and are still legal to own them
To my understanding they reversed the ruling and holding deer is now legal again. Keep in mind that our Dutch government by accident banned to keep any and all animal because those idiots forgot to specify which animal the law applied too. Making even owning a dog or cat just as illigal as owning a polar bear .
It looks like that is changing... A little bit of being too careful, and too much consideration of what happens if Johnny Citizen keeps one in the backyard and no consideration of typical traditional holding conditions.
@@iberiano-ls2rv red deers are native. But they banned them because they find it pathic. There are also other reasons for banning an animal as pet/livestock beside being an invasive species
I've seen 2 Chinese water deer up here in moray, Scotland. One was run over, but whole, so you could clearly see/identify what it was. The other ran across the road. This was in a wooded/wetish area of moray.
In his "How To Watch Wildlife," I recall Bill Oddie's telling of the Fallow Deer. I cannot remember exactly what he recounted, but it seems to me that he said that it was present in Great Britain before the last ice age, but perished as the island grew colder. From this video, it appears that it was brought back by the Romans, but, then, it went extinct again. Finally, the Normans returned them another time. So, one could argue that it is a native deer, all depending on how one defines "native."
Yes you're right it's all very complicated and many European creatures have come and gone from Britain so the the term native has really lost all meaning when it comes to species such as the fallow deer
@@TsukiCove There is a bit of a parallel in North America. For millennia, California Condors ranged widely from the Pacific Coast through the Southwest into the South down to Florida. The rise of the intensive hunting of the American Indian Clovis Culture changed everything as the herbivorous megafauna was wiped out. The predators of the herbivores, such as Dire Wolves and Sabre-Tooth Tigers, quickly followed. Without the carcasses of large beasts available, Condors retreated to areas that bordered the Pacific Ocean where they could feed on beached marine animals. This redoubt came under assault, too, when modern development spread into that far Western region. Eventually, when on the verge of extinction, the few survivors were captured for breeding in zoos with screened-in enclosures. Later, after there were sufficient numbers, a free-flying population was established in Northern Arizona. So, visitors to the Grand Canyon today can now see California Condors' flying overhead where Condors have not lived since the Pleistocene, 12,000 years ago. Despite their long absence, one could argue that they are native to the Southwest.
@@RCSVirginia California condors still existed from southern Canada to Baja California and west of the Rockies to the Pacific until the 1800s they quickly declined after the 1840s
@@glenncordova4027 From what I have read, after the Pleistocene, breeding populations of California Condors may have stretched all the way from what is now British Columbia down to Baja California. Condors received a boost when the first Californios, from Spain, Mexico and even Chile, started up large estancias in Alta California with dead cattle and calves, as well as placentae from the cows, adding on a new terrestrial food source. That, of course, did not last when development picked up with a soaring human population. Any Condors that were seen further inland in the other Western areas were probably just accidental strays.
The centre of my town has a park/nature reserve which is full of Muntjacs (and Black squirrels), sometimes they wander out I've often seen them bouncing through gardens as they panic and cause chaos. Where I was working about a decade ago one smashed it's way into our customer service reception before running off and getting run over. I can only assume it came out at night and got trapped by traffic in the morning and was navigating through gardens before it moved into the industrial area.
Though I am a Swede, I will still write. I think the red deer is the most beautiful and most impressive (and yes, I have seen a lot of moose/elk in Sweden and a red deer is more beautiful). A red deer in full rut is just a sight to behold. I have seen them in the wild, and they are majestic. A full grown male might also not back away - instead they will watch you like "Yeah, DON´T try anything with me!". The deer I love the most is the roe deer though. Cute but sometimes aggressive too. My grandfather raised one many years ago and it attacked everyone except him. They are also the tastiest I have tried so far. Roe deer filet/saddle just melts in the mouth, and a smoked foreleg is to die for.
We have a mile wide park/nature reserve in the middle of my town in Hertfordshire, it's full of Muntjacs and they be skittish little beggars. If you spot one during the day it'll be inside a tree line and you can freeze it with a stare, blink though and it's gone. They do come out of the park at night as all the houses around the park have gardens they can forage, I've often seen one as it panics and starts bounding over hedges and fences causing chaos all around.
I love sending my foreign friends audio clips of the muntjacs barking at night and asking them to guess what it is, its so much fun when I show them a picture of a 2 foot tall deer with fangs and telling them its that😂.
I have seem them all besides the Muntjac deer .I have also seen other varieties at the Scottish Deer Centre.I like the roe deer, fallow deer and red deer the best..
We get a lot of muntjac around here. They have a tendency to pop out from the bushes on the back lanes after dusk as you’re driving by. But recently one popped out that didn’t look like a muntjac. Guess it was fate for me to come across this video and have that thought answered (it looked like the Chinese water deer for those wondering).
Muntjack are astonishingly dim. I’ve seen them grazing in daylight beside the M11 motorway completely oblivious to the traffic. They are complete creatures of habit, if they have a point at which they cross a road, both in time and place they’ll keep on crossing at that time regardless of oncoming vehicles until they get run over. They happily nest in towns and eat people’s daffodils but that means they’re trotting about in town traffic which brings them into conflict and getting run over, which is how my neighbour had an injured one in his front drive, it having been flushed out of someone’s garden hedge by a dog walker’s mutt and galloped into the road. My ex-girlfriend’s parents had a family in their back garden a few years back and my farm-owning friend has a family in a thicket 20ft from the farmhouse.
In Australia, we had 7 deer species, all introduced but very seperate. Fallow in Tasmania, hog ,sambar, in victoria, javan rusa in NSW, red in Qld and in south Australia, Axis in Qld, and although not a deer, indian black buck on 1 property in Qld and in West Australia. But with commercial deer farming in the 1980s you can run into any species in any state.
There is a very large population of sika in southern Dorset, They are grazers as well as browsers and are not shy - you can see them grazing in herds of 30 to 120 in fields at dusk. Walk any woods around here (Wareham) and you can see a sharp browse line. They hit coppice hard and pretty well wipe out natural regeneration of trees from seed as well as drastically altering ground flora, leaving only the species that can't eat. They graze growing crops and reduce the yield of pastures. They are causing huge problems and the population is rapidly expanding in range.
Being that Reindeer were native to the UK at some point, even believed to have been around during the Viking age, I think they too should be classed as native along with Reds and Roes.
Came here to find out what my 'two' local deer heard are, and found out where I live has all five except the water deer and the bonus reindeer. One deer after another was like; 'we have those! I've definitely seen those.' with growing confusion as I realised there are more than expected. But yep, a quick Google confirmed I wasn't imagining things.
Red deer scream as well. Its quite unsettling. I was hiking in forestry in Scotland a couple of years ago, with a group of hinds above me on rocky ground. They kept tabs on me as I made my way down a gorge, and periodically let out loud shrieks. I dont think they were happy with my presence, which was understandable as when I found open ground there was a large shooting stand. So, they likely associated people with being shot at!
I will never forget when I was 12, and walking through the Forest of Dean with my Family. I was walking a bit ahead and came face to face with 3 Deer, standing on the path. We stood and stared at each other for about half a minute, until my 7 year old brother came screaming up the path. Frightened by this, they fled into the trees. I believe they were Fallow Deer, as they, the Muntjac and Roe live there, and only the Fallow looks like what I saw. My family did not and still do not believe me.
The forest of dean is beautiful, i go there quite a bit. If it was quite large it was probably a fallow deer as there are quite a few of them there and the roe deer are a bit smaller on average
As a resident growing up in bedfordshire (5miles from woburn abbey) , i used to go with my dad who worked part time at the abbey . One summer , i was out in the countryside around our house and saw 3 pere davids deer that had escaped from the abbey from the herd kept there . I believe they were caught again and returned to the abbey . About a month later , my dad was on his bycicle on his way home from the abbey and was followed all the way home by a wolf that had escaped from whipsnade zoo . Unfortunately the wolf was shot by the police before it could be live captured .......happy days .
It wasn’t its own species, it was just a subspecies of Brown Bear same as the others, according to the Romans though Bears in the UK was more similar to Grizzlies in terms of personality.
It is wonderful that they have been preserved from extinction and have been reintroduce into China. The reintroduction has been a success and there are now thousands of them in China.
The Duke of bedford brought some back to woburn abbey in the 1950s , with the intention to breed them up to a level where they could be reintroduced back into China . Many institutions had tried like zoos , but they refused to breed . He just let them roam free in the vastness of woburn abbey and within a year they had started to breed . It's thanks to him that they are now roaming free in their thousands in china again .
Thank God you guys don’t have chital (Indian axis deer) over there. Unless you do. Lol. We have them in the US, mostly Texas & Hawaii, and of course down-under has them, too… and although they’re apparently delicious to eat, hunting doesn’t exactly put a dent in their population here. Especially on remote Hawaiian islands, where it’s infinitely more precarious for them to be at all, from an ecological viewpoint. Hawaii is already so damaged naturally… the birds and plants alone. Both Hawaii & Texas feature quite similar, though slightly different, climates to those found in India. Don’t forget the number seven species for the UK also, _Rangifer tarandus_ (AKA reindeer in Eurasia, caribou in N. America)! 😉 Granted, there are only 150 or so in the Cairngorm reindeer herd, plus more living on the Glenlivet estate. I can’t recall if Pliocene-Pleistocene reindeer ancestors were ever found in Great Britain (via Doggerland)? But the Scottish Highland reindeer of today have been thriving steadily for over 70 years (starting in 1952).. They’re a big tourist attraction in the Highlands, apparently.. even though endemic Japanese sika are notoriously approachable and beg for food in that “deer town”, the reindeer in Scotland are likely the most easy-going, friendly & “human-oriented” of the Uk’s cervids, while also being the second-largest! Clearly they are naturalized descendants of domestic deer, to allow so much interaction, and to even seek-out attention from visitors. It would be interesting to know their genealogy and bloodline history, like if they’re descended from reindeer brought from Siberia, Scandinavia or somewhere else… same with the fallow, water deer & muntjac in the UK!
Ok just answered my own question. Lol. “ _Fossil evidence suggests reindeer in Britain at least 750,000 years ago, with remains from at least 30 archaeological sites in Britain and 22 in Ireland._ “
I live in the South East, I once saw an enormous black or possibly very dark brown stag by the side of the road, what kind of deer would that have been? It had large, sharp looking antlers.
Unfortunately, things are quite the opposite in Greece. Although we have a rather large and growing population of bears and wolves, things are not going well for the large herbivores, feral horses excluded. Hunting in Greece is a rather cheap an quite common practice especially in the countryside, where red deer, fallow deer and row deer populations have been decimated. The only exception is mt. Parnetha national park in the outskirts of Athens which is host to a large population of red deer (a little more than a thousand), boar, row deer and Cretan wild goat.
Yes it does , but they are captive bred and reside solely within the confines of the Duke of Bedford estate at woburn abbey Bedfordshire. Some were brought over in the 1950s to try and save them from extinction . It worked and so some were returned to China, where they were protected by the Chinese government and now roam wild again in their thousands .
I have no experience with any of these deer species. I do think the Roe deer are cute, but the barking could be annoying. I was surprised to hear that Red deer were introduced to the USA. Are they causing problems ?
@@TsukiCove yes can you use that species when you do a video on the largest antelopes. Wildebeest are in the same family as hartebeest topi and Blesbok
They are different species but they are very closely related. The elk is quite a bit larger. I think recent evidence has shown that the elk may be more closely related to Thorold's deer and sika deer than they are to red deer but they are still very similar.
There is now a belief that none are native, even though some were here before the last ice-age. This is the case for red deer in particular. You imply that red-sika hybrids are restricted to Scotland, they are not. They are extremely common in several areas and many stalkers will tell you that all of the large deer in some areas of the SW of England are all hybrids. Muntjac live as pairs, they are not solitary. They are monogamous and can breed all year, they are not seasonal breeders. They are also the only mammal that eats bluebells and are responsible for the removal of bluebells from huge areas of English woodlands.
