'Aggressive' rutting deer thwart charity run plans

Stags clash antlers and compete for females during the autumnal rutting season

"Unusually aggressive" rutting deer in a National Trust park have forced the cancellation of charity fun runs.

Tatton Park in Cheshire had been due to host 5k (3.1 mile) and 10k races on Saturday to raise money for The Christie cancer hospital in Manchester.

But in an email sent to would-be participants, race organiser Run Through said it was cancelling the event following "several incidents" in which park visitors had been injured during the current rutting season.

Park ranger Darren Morris said the local deer had "lost that fear of people" as visitors were "getting too close, trying to get the killer photograph for social media".

Tatton Park is a popular attraction for visitors and TV productions including Peaky Blinders

Stags, which are wild animals, become more aggressive in autumn as they compete to find a mate, bellowing loudly and clashing antlers.

In its email, Run Through said: "Recently, the deer have gathered unusually close to the park’s main pathways and have displayed unusually aggressive behaviour towards park users."

Mr Morris told BBC North West Tonight incidents this year had included people who had been “sitting their children on the backs of a red stag and then going to the front to take a photograph”.

“We have actually had somebody put a banana in front of one of the stags and had their child holding onto the stag's antlers.”

One person was injured last weekend after about six cars were parked next to the stags before occupants got out to take pictures.

He said they were trying to "corral" two groups of stags, who were "wound up already because it's pre-rut and they are full of testosterone and quite aggressive”.

Visitors are advised to photograph the wild animals from a distance

Mr Morris advised visitors to keep apart from the deer by “50 metres at least -probably more when they’re behaving like this - and keep dogs under close control, preferably on a lead, and just admire the deer from a distance”.

He said if people’s behaviour did not improve, it could be “detrimental” to the herd - delaying mating and the birth of calves later in the year.

“That calf's going to struggle through the winter months and also the hind because the grass is diminishing.”

He said race entrants could transfer to another similar run, which happens every month in the park.

Tatton Park was first declared a deer park by Edward I in 1290 and currently hosts both red and fallow deer.

The popular estate has featured in TV dramas Peaky Blinders, Coronation Street and A Gentleman in Moscow.

Along with neighbouring village Knutsford, it has also inspired fictional locations for the Victorian author Elizabeth Gaskell, who wrote Cranford and Wives and Daughters.