Three of Australia’s six wild deer species ‘wallow’ – create muddy pools or wallows by rolling around in a damp or wet patch of earth, in the process covering themselves in mud. The three that do this are sambar, rusa and red deer, while those that prefer not to get down and dirty are chital, fallow and hog deer.
A wallow is pretty obvious when it is in use as it will be a muddy hole, often with water in it, and lots of tracks around it. Often, indents or scrapes made by legs and antlers will be present, and on occasions, if the mud is of the right consistency, the imprint of the animal’s hair will also be visible. Wallows vary in size but are typically a couple of metres across and perhaps 30 or 40 centimetres deep. Even when dry, not recently used, or even grassed over, a wallow will be pretty obvious from its shape, old deer tracks and location in or next to a drainage line, on a damp bench or in a tree-stump hole.
If you read older Australian deer hunting literature you will come across authors who suggest that deer wallow to cool down in hot weather or to ward off biting and other annoying insects. Why some deer wouldn’t get hot or be annoyed was never clarified!
We now know from the work of the likes of Max Downes that at least with sambar, wallowing has little or nothing to do with cooling down or discouraging insects and everything to do with their socialising and breeding strategies. It is likely that rusa and red deer are also wallowing for exactly the same reasons. Deer species that don’t wallow have simply taken different evolutionary pathways over millions of years and developed other ways of living.
The modern thinking is that deer wallows are part of a breeding strategy – the stags roll around in the wet depression, urinate on themselves and in the wallow and rub their scent glands, faces and antlers on the surrounding soil. In the process they mix their scents and pheromones in the wallow and at the same time coat themselves with mud and odours, and this heady mixture can then be spread around their home range.
Needless to say, unless you are dying from thirst, never drink the water in an active wallow – try and find a running creek or river instead!
A deer wallow is a focal point for all deer in an area – one reason that hunters often choose a wallow to set up a game camera. Wallows are the domain of male deer but because of their significance to breeding, they also attract hinds and calves as well – animals come to the wallow to ‘read the book’ and learn about what is going on in their home patch.
Mike Harrison in his book Sambar – The Magnificent Deer describes how sambar stags of all ages use wallows and that although hinds are often visitors to wallows and stand or lie in them on occasions, they do not actually wallow. Only sambar stags in hard antler (and therefore in breeding condition) wallow, re-enforcing the fact that wallowing in sambar is associated with breeding activity. As the majority of sambar stags are in velvet antler and most hinds pregnant between January and May, wallows tend to be neglected and unused at this time although in many cases they will be dry anyway. Mike also clearly demonstrated that a wallow is not the exclusive domain of any one sambar stag – in fact, any number of stags may use a wallow over a number of days.
Wallows can be ‘single pot’ or ‘multiple pot’ and when they are active can have a very impressive amount of deer sign around them. Once established, wallows are likely to remain in use over many seasons.
Mud can often be found on vegetation around a wallow, on the ground where it has dripped or been shaken from the animal’s coat, on vegetation and logs that it has brushed against and on rubbing and preaching trees that have been deliberately targeted. Occasionally, mud from a wallow will also be found where a stag has bedded for the day and left a smear to indicate where he has lain.
Occasionally I have come across patches of sand in sambar country that have the appearance of a wallow – numerous stag tracks and the imprints of knees, antlers and heavy bodies. Whether these are really wallows or whether they are just convenient bedding places or have some other significance I am unclear. You would have to suspect however, they wouldn’t hold or transfer scent to an animal as a mud wallow would. A trail camera should sort out just what these relatively rare sand patches represent.
Like any other features in a sambar, rusa or red deer’s range, a wallow is a likely spot to sit and watch to see if an animal will appear, or a good starting point to get onto a stag – particularly if the wallow is ‘red hot’ and a stag is likely to be close by.