By Quincy Buickerood of the University of Puget Sound
Huemul deer are an endangered medium sized deer with less than 3000 individuals in South America. The Huemul deer is on the emblem of Chile and loved by many Chileans. After the colonization of Chile from Europeans the Huemul deer population has been decreasing. The Huemul population has dwindled mostly due to habitat loss from the introduction of livestock to the Huemul’s habitat. The competition for grazing area with livestock forced the Huemul deer to less ideal grazing land as well as limiting annual movement between higher and lower elevations. Our goal was to see if we could identify the range of Huemul deer in the Furioso sector of Patagonia National Park in Chile.
After a long week in Jeinimeni researching Magellanic woodpeckers, we set out for a five day, four night long trip in Furioso. Furioso is a seldom visited area of Patagonia National Park that was added in 2018 with the creation of Patagonia National Park. Furioso had a large amount of cattle grazing on it before 2018, and still has sporadic grazing on it to this day. We surveyed two different areas on opposite sides of the Arroyo Quemado river in old growth Lenga forest. (photos of area if we have them)
Our research was looking for Huemul and cow scat, tracks and live sightings. With the data we would be able to draw conclusions about the location of cows and Huemul and how cows might be impacting Huemul. To collect data we split our group of 11 students and 4 instructors into 5 groups containing 3 people. In those smaller groups we walked to different pre-determined coordinates spaced out across and up the valley side, collecting data as we walked up the valley. Only one Huemul was sighted but dozens of tracks and recent scat was found. A group of cows was seen several times in the river basin and a large amount of cow scat was found, most of it older than a few years in the Lenga forests.
On November 4th and 5th we spend the night car camping next to a gorgeous waterfall. On the day of the 5th we surveyed our first section on the East side of the river.
On November 6th we backpacked to a camp 4km down stream where we had a few classes, one about habitat degradation which related wonderfully to our research. On the 7th of November we surveyed a section on the West side of the river. About half of the team had enough time to climb a mountain after collecting data and was rewarded with amazing views of the valley and much of Patagonia National Park. After our final night we hiked back to the car on the morning of the 8th and wrapped up our trip to Furioso.
All photos by Quincy Buickerood.