Over the last century, the Chacabuco Valley of Chile has seen some dramatic changes.
In the early 20th century, wild grasslands became pastures and fenced farmlands, cutting through native plants and driving out imperiled species like the South Andean deer, or huemul, which was hunted to the brink of extinction.
And they weren’t exactly hard to catch.
“It is an extremely trusting animal that is not afraid of humans,” Sebastian Di Martino, conservation director at the Rewilding Argentina Foundation, once told Dialogue Earth.
In the early 2000s, Chacabuco Valley’s farmland was poised to become the site for a hydroelectric project called HidroAysén. The five proposed mega dams would have disrupted the Baker River basin — into which the Chacabuco River empties — and flooded roughly 14,000 acres of the Patagonian wilderness.
Fortunately, a decade-plus of protests from the Chilean people stopped the project in its tracks. Doug and Kris Tompkins of Tompkins Conservation bought up an area in the valley, setting the stage for what would become Patagonia National Park.
Today, the valley is once again home to the rare huemul deer — which remains one of the world’s most endangered species.
Fortunately, they have people in their corner eager to help.
Rodrigo Pacheco/Tompkins Conservation
In 2015, the infectious bacterium Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis began spreading across Chile via domestic livestock.
The resulting infection, caseous lymphadenitis, is commonly called “cheesy gland.” The debilitating, and sometimes deadly, disease leads to abscesses in the lymph nodes and internal organs — and it was decimating wild huemuls who had already faced dramatic population declines.
Researchers were able to treat the disease with antibiotics, but it proved difficult to repeatedly capture and release afflicted animals.
To create a safer, and more effective, treatment plan for afflicted huemuls, Tompkins Conservation’s offshoot organization Rewilding Chile recently opened the Huemul Rescue and Rehabilitation Center.
The center’s first patient is “Distraido,” a young stag who suffered from multiple large abscesses caused by the cheesy gland disease.
Rigoberto Jofré/Tompkins Conservation
After a month of intensive treatment at the center, Distraido was given a clean bill of health and finally set free to rejoin his herd in the wild. To monitor his progress, wildlife rangers have continued tracking him via a high frequency transmitter.
“There’s very little knowledge of how to work with huemul deer in captivity,” Cristian Saucedo, wildlife director at Rewilding Chile, said in a press statement. “So we can actually say that the successful treatment and release of Distraido marks a before and after in huemul conservation.”
Distraido may be the first patient at the center, but he is far from the last. The center’s veterinary staff and wildlife rangers are already seeing further progress as they continue taking on new captures and transfers of sick huemuls.
“Without these interventions, the huemul deer would surely be lost to history,” said Kristine Tompkins, the president of Tompkins Conservation.
“It’s not only a symbol of Chile, but a keystone species restoring its ecosystems. By helping the huemul thrive, the work started here can reverberate for generations.”
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Featured Image: Fotogalilea/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
