June 2023 marked the 50th anniversary of the Isle of Rum Red Deer Project, a study which is remarkable both for its longevity and for the detailed information it has revealed about its subject species. Here, Marion Hall shares insights and discoveries from just one small strand of the project.
If you leave the path and strike out through the heather in the Scottish highlands, you might – with a lot of luck – spot a Red Deer Cervus elaphus calf curled up in the vegetation. Red Deer are typical of so-called ‘hider’ species of hoofed mammal (ungulates), as opposed to ‘follower’ species (Lent 1974).