A deer or true deer is a hoofed ruminant ungulate of the family Cervidae. It is divided into subfamilies Cervinae and Capreolinae. Male deer of almost all species, as well as female reindeer, grow and shed new antlers each year. These antlers are bony extensions of the skull and are often used for combat between males.
The roe deer, also known as the roe, western roe deer, or European roe, is a species of deer. The male of the species is sometimes referred to as a roebuck. The roe is a small deer, reddish and grey-brown, and well-adapted to cold environments. The species is widespread in Europe, from the Mediterranean to Scandinavia, from Scotland to the Caucasus, and east as far as northern Iran.
The sika deer, also known as the Northernspotted deer or the Japanese deer, is a species of deer native to much of East Asia and introduced to other parts of the world. Previously found from northern Vietnam in the south to the Russian Far East in the north, it is an uncommon species that has been extirpated in most areas of its native range, except in Japan, where it is overabundant and present in very large numbers.
Game or quarry is any wild animal hunted for animal products, for recreation ("sporting"), or for trophies. The species of animals hunted as game varies in different parts of the world and by different local jurisdictions, though most are terrestrial mammals and birds. Fish caught non-commercially are also referred to as game fish.
Muntjacs, also known as the barking deer or rib-faced deer, are small deer of the genus Muntiacus native to South Asia and Southeast Asia. Muntjacs are thought to have begun appearing 15–35 million years ago, with remains found in Miocene deposits in France, Germany and Poland. Most are listed as least-concern species or Data Deficient by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), although others such as the black muntjac, Bornean yellow muntjac, and giant muntjac are vulnerable, near threatened, and Critically Endangered, respectively.
The Irish elk, also called the giant deer or Irish deer, is an extinct species of deer in the genus Megaloceros and is one of the largest deer that ever lived. Its range extended across Eurasia during the Pleistocene, from Ireland to Lake Baikal in Siberia. The most recent remains of the species have been radiocarbon dated to about 7,700 years ago in western Russia. Its antlers, which can span 3.5 metres (11 ft) across are the largest known of any deer. It is not closely related to either living species called the elk, with it being widely agreed that its closest living relatives are fallow deer (Dama).
The Veluwe is a forest-rich ridge of hills in the province of Gelderland in the Netherlands. The Veluwe features many different landscapes, including woodland, heath, some small lakes and Europe's largest sand drifts.
Killarney National Park, near the town of Killarney, County Kerry, was the first national park in Ireland, created when the Muckross Estate was donated to the Irish Free State in 1932. The park has since been substantially expanded and encompasses over 102.89 km2 of diverse ecology, including the Lakes of Killarney, oak and yew woodlands of international importance, and mountain peaks. It has the only red deer herd on mainland Ireland and the most extensive covering of native forest remaining in Ireland. The park is of high ecological value because of the quality, diversity, and extensiveness of many of its habitats and the wide variety of species that they accommodate, some of which are rare. The park was designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1981. The park forms part of a Special Area of Conservation and a Special Protection Area.
Reeves's muntjac, also known as the Chinese muntjac, is a species of muntjac found widely in south-eastern China and Taiwan. It has also been introduced in the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Japan. It takes its name from John Reeves, a naturalist employed by the British East India Company in the 19th century.
The Cervinae or the Old World deer, are a subfamily of deer. Alternatively, they are known as the plesiometacarpal deer, due to having lost the parts of the second and fifth metacarpal bones closest to the foot, distinct from the telemetacarpal deer of the Capreolinae.
Deer hunting is hunting deer for meat and sport, an activity which dates back tens of thousands of years. Venison, the name for deer meat, is a nutritious and natural food source of animal protein that can be obtained through deer hunting. There are many different types of deer around the world that are hunted for their meat. For sport, often hunters try to kill deer with the largest and most antlers to score them using inches. There are two different categories of antlers. They are typical and nontypical. They measure tine length, beam length, and beam mass by each tine. They will add all these measurements up to get a score. This score is the score without deductions. Deductions occur when the opposite tine is not the same length as it is opposite. That score is the deducted score.
The island of Great Britain, along with the rest of the archipelago known as the British Isles, has a largely temperate climate. It contains a relatively small fraction of the world's wildlife. The biota was severely diminished in the last ice age, and shortly thereafter was separated from the continent by the English Channel's formation. Since then, humans have hunted the most dangerous forms to extinction, though domesticated forms such as the dog and the pig remain. The wild boar has subsequently been reintroduced as a meat animal.
Six species of deer are living wild in Great Britain: Scottish red deer, roe deer, fallow deer, sika deer, Reeves's muntjac, and Chinese water deer. Of those, Scottish red and roe deer are native and have lived in the isles throughout the Holocene. Fallow deer have been reintroduced twice, by the Romans and the Normans, after dying out in the last ice age. The other three are escaped or released alien species.
The Persian fallow deer is a deer species once native to all of the Middle East, but currently only living in Iran and Israel. It was reintroduced in Israel. It has been listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List since 2008. After a captive breeding program, the population has rebounded from only a handful of deer in the 1960s to over a thousand individuals.
Fauna of Wales includes marine and land animals, birds and reptiles that are resident, visitors or have been introduced to Wales.
An ornamental animal is an animal kept for display or curiosity, often in a park. A wide range of mammals, birds and fish have been kept as ornamental animals. Ornamental animals have often formed the basis of introduced populations, sometimes with negative ecological effects, but a history of being kept as ornamental animals has also preserved breeds, types and even species which have become rare or extinct elsewhere.
Fallow deer is the common name for species of deer in the genus Dama of subfamily Cervinae.
The biodiversity of Wales is the wide variety of ecosystems, living organisms, and the genetic makeups found in Wales.
