Fallow deer

Dama dama

Group: Big game
Size class: Medium (10–70 kg)
Family: Cervidae

Range

Europe
North America
Oceania
South America

Habitat

Forest
Farmland

Range

Countries it is found in

42 countries

Albania
Australia
Austria
Belarus
Belgium
Bosnia & Herzegovina
Bulgaria
Croatia
Czechia
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Kosovo
Latvia
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg

Range from:ASM Mammal Diversity Database, GBIF occurrence records — read 2026-08-05

Chapter 01

Overview

The European fallow deer (Dama dama) is one of two living fallow deer, alongside the Persian fallow deer. It is historically native to Turkey and possibly the Italian and Balkan peninsulas and Rhodes. During the Pleistocene it lived across much of Europe, reaching as far north as the British Isles in the Last Interglacial, before the Last Glacial Period collapsed its range back into refugia in Anatolia and probably the Balkans. Its present spread across Europe is a human reintroduction to that prehistoric distribution, and it has been introduced well beyond it. Its social organisation is unusually plastic: group size tracks habitat, herds are largest just before the rut and smallest when they are does with fawns, and for much of the year the sexes stay apart, with bachelor groups and mixed groups both occurring. It favours older forest broken by grass and varied vegetation, but tolerates conditions from cool and wet to hot and dry.

Chapter 02

Identification

Bucks are 140–160 cm long, 85–95 cm at the shoulder and typically 60–100 kg; does are 130–150 cm long, 75–85 cm at the shoulder and 30–50 kg. Regional variation is wide — bucks in southern England average about 66 kg, does about 45 kg — and the largest bucks anywhere reach 190 cm and 150 kg. Fawns are born at around 30 cm and 3–4 kg. Lifespan is twelve to sixteen years. Coat colour is the complication. Four main variants occur: common, menil, melanistic and leucistic. Leucistic animals are almost white and are not albinos; melanistic ones are very dark. A herd can hold several variants at once, so colour alone identifies nothing. Bucks give a low-frequency vocalisation known as a groan, produced by the shape of the vocal tract.

Field data

Tracks

A photograph of real sign left by Fallow deer. Prints vary with gait, ground and how long they have been there — treat this as one example, not a template.

Track photo:Violet T.CC BY

On the table

Meat & cooking

Table grade 5 of 55/5

Sold as meat in a legal market
Has a named traditional dish
Published way to handle and cook it
Eaten in more than one country
No known health advisory

Traditional preparations

Dovhjortsstek: Fallow venison is fine-grained and mild, and the haunch and saddle are treated much as red deer — roasted quickly and served pink. Venison — Wikipedia
Game charcuterie: The shoulder and trim from park-culled fallow are commonly turned into sausage and air-dried meat. Charcuterie — Wikipedia

Sources

Sources: European fallow deer — Wikipedia — read 2026-08-05

Rusa timorensis

Same subfamily (Cervinae)

AsiaOceania