A LOVESICK stag is creating havoc on a Cork city golf course, forcing golfers to cancel their games in case they encounter the upset animal.
The wild stag appeared on the nine hole course adjoining the Silver Springs Hotel on the outskirts of Cork a few days ago.
In the early hours of yesterday, it drove off two hotel staff who went out to chase it away because of the damage it is causing to the greens and fairways.
"They went up and confronted him, but I gather he was quite vicious," a hotel spokesman said.
Yesterday morning, as a precaution, hotel guests were advised not to use the course because of the behaviour of the animal which is clearly "in rut".
This is the time of year when stags fight one another to determine which of them will have the right to make the females pregnant.
While deer are what is known in wildlife terms as a "flight animal" - in other words, they run away when approached - the normal rules, do not apply to stags during the rutting season.
This behaviour continues for a number of weeks until the breeding season ends and then the stags revert to more normal behaviour.
During the rut they fight, roar loudly and dig up the earth and roll in it, covering themselves in mud. Commercial deer farmers take special safety precautions.
The dangers were underlined some years ago when a Northern Ireland deer farmer was gored to death by a rutting stag.
A spokesman for the Silver Springs Hotel said last night: "We don't think there are any wild deer around this area, but on the other hand he could have escaped from a deer farm."
The stag has so far evaded the blanket of security surrounding the hotel where a major EU conference on rural development is taking place involving 500 delegates.