This indigenous breed are becoming more numerous and seemingly more confident around Otley. They are almost a rusty red colour at this time of year, with a prominent white rump patch, heart-shaped on the female (doe), kidney shaped on the male (roebuck). This patch is “flashed” as an alarm signal to other deer (a bit like the bobbing white tails of rabbits), along with a noise from the male like a dog’s bark. They are regarded as pests because rather than grazing they feed on the new growth of plants such as trees, causing a lot of damage. This is compounded by their ability to jump surprisingly high fences. They don’t need large areas of woodland to survive, and as a result there are now urban populations living in and around, for example, the cemeteries of Bristol and Glasgow. In the original Austrian version, Bambi was a Roe deer.
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