Possibility of two reproductive seasons per year in southern pudu (Pudu puda) from a semicaptive population

VIDAL F; SMITH FLUECK, JM; FLUCK, WT; BARTOS, L

Huilo Huilo

Congreso; 7th International Deer Biology Congress; 2010

Pudu (Pudu puda), occurring in the southern cone of Latin America, has been classified as vulnerableby the IUCN, yet little is known about this animal in the wild, with most knowledge on the breedingbehavior coming from captive animals. For this second smallest deer in the world, delayedimplantation has been suggested to explain the two peaks in the annual cycle of male sexual hormonesbased upon the accepted tenet that the breeding period occurs only once a year between March andJune. However, in this study, birth dates from fawns born at the Los Canelos semi-captive breedingcenter in Chile and male courting behavior revealed possibility of two rutting periods: autumn andspring. To our knowledge, this is the first time that late fall/early winter births (May through earlyJune) have been recorded for the southern pudu; two of these four births were conceived by females inthe wild. From available zoo and captive birth records (n = 67), no fawns were born in the winter. Forall births combined (n = 91), 64% occurred in spring. The roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) and PereDavid deer (Elaphurus davidianus) have been considered the only two temperate cervids in whichsexual activity is initiated by increasing day length and which breed in early summer. Yet, the presentresults indicate a similar response from the southern pudu if under a wild or semi-captive environment,with breeding taking place in spring. These results suggest that this species may either have tworeproductive periods per year or retained the capacity to be a breeder for a much more extended periodof time than documented by earlier studies. Pudu, like other temperate deer, are responsive tophotoperiod for timing their breeding period, but may further optimize their production of offspring byalso responding to other environmental cues such as seasonal variation in food supply when theclimatic conditions are favorable