Much the same warning to the public is issued each year prior to calving season & rut, for pretty much the same reason.
No matter how many times it's mentioned in the media, how many notices they place around the parks, there's always gonna be some muppet doing something idiotic near to the deer.
One that had potential for perhaps the worst of outcomes was one I personally witnessed.
Woman and man in the park with youngster in a pushchair approached a large Red stag who was couched close to his hinds.
I was at a safe distance photographing him & his harem with a suitable long lense on my camera.
But they had other ideas, that quickly became clear as they walked closer & closer to the deer.
Even getting as close as they did was stupid, never mind doing it while pushing a very young (a few months old) child in a pushchair over rough ground.
Burdened like that they weren't going to be able to clear the area quickly if they needed to - but it became clear that they didn't imagine that they might ever need to
I could barely believe my eyes as I watched what happened next
The parents chatted a bit, then mum took the child out of the pushchair and approached the stag, dad had his mobile up, getting ready to take happy snaps
I moved in and tried to speak to the dad about this maybe not being the wisest thing to do and was promptly, rudely & aggressively told to go & mind my own effin business
So, that's exactly what I did
I took out my phone and called the park police who arrived on the scene as mum was trying to seat the child on the stag's back - so that dad could take a photo of the whole moronic escapade, or have a photo of mum & infant for posterity perhaps, who knows?
Fortunately the stag largely ignored them, it only stood up as the cops approached - thankfully the kid wasn't on its back at that point
Even then the stupid woman made almost no effort to move out of its way ffs she didn't even put herself between the stag and her young'un!
One of the cops had to pull her away while a couple of others dealt with the braindead idiot of a dad
So, it all ended reasonably well, but could have been SO much worse.
One of the police told me, just before they left, that it was the fifth such incident that they'd had to deal with THAT DAY
It seems that there's no shortage of idiots these days
Stags have gored folk in Richmond Park on several occasions, a few folk have been kicked by deer, cyclists sent flying, the famous "Fenton incident" etc
But such things keep happening, hence the need for the warnings which seem daft to the likes of folk here
www.telegraph.co.uk
