The Essex Naturalist
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was not predicted. There are two possible reasons to explain this. The first is
that deer may be travelling further to reach feeding grounds for example 1000 -
1500 m rather than the proposed 750 m adopted as a criterion. The second
concerns observations by Chapman and Chapman (1975) who found that while
most buck fawns tend to leave the natal area as yearlings, some will return for
the rut. Some doe fawns continue to frequent the place where they were born
(termed the ancestral fawning grounds), sometimes for many years. Buxton
(1923) reports that, "there are always plenty [of fallow deer] within a mile's
radius of Wake Arms", and this certainly supports the possibility of Wake Arms
being an ancestral fawning ground but would require evidence that the fawns are
dropped there.
In summary, then, this work has provided six points in favour of the
behavioural hypothesis (access points, evening movements observations,
roadkill statistics, traffic surveys, motorway crossing spots and deer presence
predictions) the evidence at the Wake Arms is mixed. The behavioural
hypothesis can be accepted.
Evaluating the two hypotheses
The balance of evidence has favoured the behavioural hypothesis but some
support was also found for the historical hypothesis. The evidence is complex
and the data never as complete as one would like but certain conclusions can be
drawn. Firstly the deer are shy, do avoid visitors on sight or smell, and can
tolerate traffic better than pedestrians. However the key concept is deer
movement. This occurs on a daily basis for feeding and seasonally as part of the
life cycle (see Appendix). These are strong behaviourally determined
movements.
Movement is also occurring on a greater scale with dispersal of bucks and
does. The abundance of common fallow on the bufferlands is evidence of
dispersion to the area. In times before the development of the motorway
network it would have been possible for the black fallow to disperse out of the
forest and interbreed with the common form leading to the common form
producing black fawns in later generations. More importantly the evidence of
the common form being in the forest before the black deer were imported in
1612, and the dispersal of the common form over the Essex forests and woods to
the present day (Chapman 1977) indicate that a pure herd of black deer could
not exist without either selective hunting or culling of the common form or
enclosure of the herd, or both. We see the latter at the forest deer 'sanctuary'
which is fenced and where culling has ensured a black herd of a given size. We
infer that through history selective hunting and enclosure of the hunting forest
has been the key to the Epping herd's coloration even to the removal of white
bucks. Ironically the development of the new motorway network together with
the barriers of the Lee Navigation canal to the west and the London
Underground railway to the east has sealed the main forest from what is