Deer forest

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The Deer Forest is an institution and phenomenon peculiar to the Highlands of Scotland. It denotes a sporting estate which is kept and managed largely or solely for the purposes of maintaining a resident population of red deer for sporting (deer stalking) purposes.

Typically, deer forests are in hilly and mountainous areas of the Highlands and Islands; and, despite the use of the term "forest" they are almost all devoid of trees. They usually extend to 10,000 acres (40 km²) and more, and deer which live there belong to the small-bodied, hill-dwelling race of red deer typical of northern Scotland, which have adapted to life on open hills after the loss of woodland habitat.

Most deer forests are not fenced or enclosed in any way, and the deer can move freely across large tracts of hill country. Boundaries, referred to as marches, are usually marked by a river, stream, ridge, shoreline or similar natural feature. Hind forests and stag forests are so called because of the tendencies of red deer to form large, single-sex herds outside the autumn rutting time, and most forests hold either a resident stag herd or a hind herd for much of the year.

In deer forest, the term forest is dervied from the ancient and medieval use of the Latin word foris - "open" or "waste", to denote an extensive outdoor "waste area" kept as a hunting preserve.^{[citation needed]}

Scotland's deer forests are almost all privately owned and managed, although a few once-distinguished forests such as Torridon and Glenfeshie have moved into semi-public ownership via bodies such as the National Trust for Scotland, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Ministry of Defence, and sporting deer stalking is no longer carried on there.