India GO
Chital (spotted deer)
चीतल (chital)
A rufous deer covered in white spots all year, living in herds in open forest. The commonest deer of the Indian lowlands.
How to recognise it
Spots that never fade, a dark line down the spine, and a sharp barking alarm when something moves in the undergrowth.
Where to see it
Chandigarh
The golden deer that lures Sita away in the Ramayana is a chital, and the deer pair flanking a wheel is the emblem of the Buddha's first sermon.
Sukhna Wildlife Sanctuary (often)
Dehradun
Western Rajaji, the larger part of the park west of the Ganga, towards Dehradun, is exceptionally rich in prey: a Wildlife Institute of India survey in the mid-2000s estimated about 110 wild ungulates per square kilometre there, with chital the most numerous.
Rajaji National Park · Lachhiwala Nature Park (often)
Haridwar
After 193 Gujjar herding families and their buffaloes were moved out of the Chilla range in 2003, the share of fawns among its chital rose year after year, at densities of about 40–50 chital per square kilometre.
Rajaji National Park, Chilla · Jhilmil Jheel Conservation Reserve
Hyderabad
Harina means deer, and the chital here outnumber even the blackbuck the park is known for: the count the curator gave in 2015 listed 1,164 chital against 872 blackbuck.
Mahavir Harina Vanasthali National Park
Mayapur
Bethuadahari, protected since 1980, keeps 67 hectares of Gangetic alluvial forest beside the highway 22 km north of Krishnanagar, and it is known mainly for its deer and pythons.
Bethuadahari Wildlife Sanctuary
Mumbai
In a 2015 study of Sanjay Gandhi National Park, chital made up about 23% of what the park's leopards ate, more than any other wild prey and second only to domestic dogs at 32%.
Sanjay Gandhi National Park · Kanheri Caves
Varanasi
The Buddha gave his first sermon at the Deer Park at Sarnath, and the two deer flanking a wheel became the emblem of that moment: carved on stupas, painted on monastery walls and used on the Sarnath site itself.
Sarnath Deer Park