The roaring stag with its mighty antlers has inspired the imaginations of not only nobles, upper-class daughters, and romantics, but also adorned the walls of many a German petty bourgeois. Yet, its antlers, as a symbol of the potent ruler, also made it a pitiable object of hunting desire and a tragic figure of the forest. Wilhelm Bode, himself once a passionate hunter by family tradition, depicts the tumultuous natural and cultural history of the stag. He not only recounts the fascination with Bambi, the significance of the stag for Frida Kahlo and Joseph Beuys, and the ups and downs of hunting history. He describes how his encounters with the stag gradually steered him away from trophy hunting and turned him into a staunch opponent of a thoughtless hunting practice that does not consider its consequences for the natural environment. Thus, this.