Meet the red deer herd at Lotherton in Leeds

National World - LocalTV

A stag-do with a difference! The Lotherton Deer Tractor Tours are back for 2024 following their staggering success last summer at the Aberford attraction.

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00:00Lots of our regular visitors to Lotherton already know about our herd of deer, and they

00:09are on full view most of the time, they do sometimes come to close in, but having a ride

00:15on the trailer gives you a chance to be almost within touching distance, we do give them

00:22a small amount of feed while we are out in the park and they have learnt to come to the

00:27trailer.

00:28Lotherton in Aberford has been home to red deer since the 1980s, all living in the estate's

00:33specially maintained deer park.

00:36This year the herd is bigger than ever, and we joined Tom, David and the team for one

00:40of their deer tractor tours which have returned this summer.

00:44One of the main reactions is people don't realise how big they are, because they seem

00:48from a distance, when they actually come close to the trailer, and of course we've got Teddy

00:52our main stag, he's quite an immense animal, he's a really good spread of antlers, and

00:59you have to be next to him to really appreciate how big he is.

01:03The current stag we've had for 8 years, he may have been 6 or 7 years old when we got

01:09him, so we're guessing he's 15ish, occasionally we've changed the stag, so we've got a new

01:14bloodline in, we've tried to keep them as pure as we possibly can, we're only able to

01:21go on verbal records, but we believe that it's quite a pure herd.

01:27So what's it like to have the Lotherton estate as your office, and to keep an eye on these

01:32magnificent creatures?

01:34Somebody has to do this on Christmas day, and I give up my Christmas morning to come

01:38and do this, it is so special.

01:41I am sure other people would do that if they got the chance, we've got to appreciate they

01:46are a wild herd of deer, but they are captive, so they can come and go within the park as

01:55they wish, they don't have to come to us, if they wanted to avoid us they would.

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