Deer information
Deer vehicle collisions
Each year, there are over 150 road traffic accidents involving deer on Cannock Chase and surrounding roads.
Many of the deer are not killed outright. Some have to be humanely dispatched at the road side to prevent suffering and further traffic accidents.
Please slow down and drive carefully on the roads through Cannock Chase.
Deer casualties
If you hit a deer or see one injured on the road side please call Staffordshire Police on 999 if it is causing a hazard or is still alive. If a deer is dead on the roadside verge please call 101. A deer warden will be notified for both situations.
Do not feed the deer
Please do not feed the deer on Cannock Chase.
The consequences of feeding the deer are:
- poaching: feeding deer will make it easier for poachers, as deer will always linger around where people feed them and become used to humans
- increase in deer vehicle collisions
- habituation: deer will become dependent on easy food
- disrupting their natural biology – speeds up their metabolism, making them burn fat reserves faster, this can cause diarrhoea, dehydration and death
- spreading disease. Close proximity is a way for deer to spread disease
Spring: think twice
If you come across a baby deer huddled in the grass, please do not attempt to pick it up, its mother will smell you and may abandon the baby deer.
Keep your dog under control. Each year deer are killed and maimed by dogs running out of control.