Sambhur (Sambar) Stag at Korakundah Tea Estate, Nilgiris
This photo shows a stag of the Sambar Deer, Rusa unicolor, an endangered species of deer native to the Indian subcontinent, southern China, and southeast Asia.
This species of deer is attracted to tea fields by the dense cover of broadleaf shrubs, an environment it likes. They are mostly nocturnal, sometimes active at dawn or dusk, so it's infrequent to get a good daytime photo like this.
They are threatened by overhunting, armed conflict, and industrial use of their habitat. Tea plantations are probably more beneficial to this species than other human uses of the land, due to the presence of the sort of dense shrub cover that they depend on, but less valuable than an intact wild ecosystem.
