Territorial fidelity and tenure in roe deer bucks

We present data on fidelity to territory, and length of tenure (multi-year) for bucks of European roe deer Capreolus capreolus (Linnaeus, 1758) based on 26 radio-collared individuals that were followed for up to 5 years. Individual bucks showed a high degree of fidelity to summer territory, with consecutive year's activity centres being less than 200 m apart on average. An average 70% of one year's territory was within the borders of the previous year's territory. No buck occupied a territory which did not overlap with the previous year's territory. Activity centres of consecutive winter home ranges were on average 502 m apart, although this difference was not sig­nificant. Several cases of switching between non-overlapping winter ranges between years were observed. Annual survival was high (97%) and we observed only a single case of an old buck losing dominance on his former territory after a very hard winter. All other surviving bucks regained their dominance on their territories. It is suggested that the roe deer bucks were demonstrating an "always stay" strategy in order to gain the benefits of site familiarity. This is in keeping with the concept of roe deer territoriality being a relatively "low-risk low-gain" strategy where emphasis is placed on survival and multi-year tenure of a territory.