Deer Matters: why feeding wild deer turns them into beggars and bullies

Last month, in London’s Richmond Park, a red deer stag had to be destroyed after injuring a visitor. It had approached a group of people enjoying a picnic, apparently searching for food, before lunging at a man in his sixties with its antlers after being startled. Fortunately, the man’s chest injuries have been described as not life-threatening, but the incident should still never have occurred.

The stag involved was not behaving normally. The Royal Parks’ team noted that it had stopped grazing naturally, moved away from the rest of the herd and become solitary. It appears to have learned to seek out people and demand food from them. The result in this case could easily have been a human tragedy. It certainly had fatal consequences for the deer concerned.

Deer, even the relatively placid ones encountered in parks such as Richmond, are still wild animals. It is a fact that much of the visiting public fails to register. Park manager Paul Richards pointed out that the incident was a direct result of visitors feeding the deer. He added that many were treating Richmond Park as little more than a “petting zoo”. The Royal Parks asks visitors to stay at least 50m from the deer.

Sadly, this was not an isolated case. Paul also described the only other such incident in his four years at the park, one that resulted in a deer being put down, this time after becoming used to receiving treats from visitors’ backpacks and eventually jumping on a woman’s back and knocking her over. He also highlighted a steady increase in people approaching deer, often with small children, to take close-up photographs, get that all-important selfie and even attempt to stroke the animals.

Deer are great opportunists, and some, especially those in parks or popular tourist spots, can quickly learn to overcome a natural fear of people in return for an easy mouthful or two. Feeding deer and other wild animals can encourage an unhealthy dependency as well as having other undesirable consequences. It may unfortunately lead them to develop unnatural levels of assertiveness after learning to accept food from the human hand. This has led to reports of aggressive behaviour and even deer physically bullying people for food.

How deer injure people, and how human food harms deer

In any circumstances deer can still be nervous animals and a sudden fright might cause them to lash out. It may only take a slight movement of a stag’s or buck’s head for them to accidentally cause injury to someone standing close by. In addition, a deer’s hooves are very sharp and can be used in self-defence.

Deer have specialised dietary needs and will find what suits them naturally. Human foods generally do not suit them and can do them serious harm. It’s not only park deer that are affected. Readers may remember the fate of a wild Scottish red deer stag, named Callum by his many admirers. For years he hung around the Beinn Eighe nature reserve car park in Torridon, where hikers and other visitors fed him junk food including croissants and Rice Krispies.

As a result, Callum’s teeth rotted to the extent that he was unable to feed himself naturally. Inevitably he lost condition and was eventually euthanised. All deer need natural food to thrive, and if there is a need for any supplementary feeding this is best left to their keepers or other specialists.

Our urbanised society has become increasingly detached from the natural world. Unfortunately, people’s perceptions are often shaped only by what they see on their television screens, and too many fail to appreciate that Britain’s wild animals are not Disney characters.

Wild animals can be unpredictable. By encouraging deer, foxes, badgers or other wildlife to take food from our hands, or to tolerate people at a distance they should naturally find alarming, we are creating situations that have the potential to result in disaster. It’s down to us to respect both their space and their true nature.

The British Deer Society brings people together for deer through education, training, research and advocacy. As an independent charity, its work is made possible by members who care about the future of wild deer and their habitats. Find out more at bds.org.uk.