Project Pudu

Abstract

The southern pudu Pudu pudu, a small forest deer, now occurs only in the temperate Valdivian rainforests of Chile and Argentina. Ninety per cent of its historic habitat, the lowland forest, has been occupied and cleared by man, bringing the pudu increasingly into contact with both man and his domestic livestock. This, coupled with increased predation, livestock diseases and competition from introduced exotic deer, has made the pudu extremely rare and locally extinct in many areas, especially in Argentina. In the IUCN Red Data Book it is classed as vulnerable.