Huemul heresies: beliefs in search of supporting data. 1. Historical and zooarcheological considerations.

FLUCK, WT; SMITH-FLUECK, JM

Huilo Huilo

Congreso; 7th International Deer Biology Congress; 2010

Patagonian huemul (Hippocamelus bisulcus) were eliminated from many former ranges before arrivalof early explorers who already acknowledged their rareness. Considering ungulates in mountains backhome analogous, huemul was called a mountain deer, which is repeatedly cited without validation andremains the orthodox interpretation. Yet species considered analogous also use lowlands, flatlands,deserts and grasslands, and H. antisensis uses habitat with high affinity to Patagonian grasslands.Recent comparative analyses of postcranial morphologies show that huemul cannot be associated withrock climbing species, but fall within ranges of other cervids. Analyses of past human utilization relyon one study of economic anatomy and bone remains, frequently concluding that huemul wereunimportant to hunter-gatherers. However, considering only bone fat and omitting easy removable fatis erroneous. Total energy of deer in autumn/winter partitions into 53% as fat and hunter-gathererselsewhere focused on deer during the peak fat cycle, using all easy removable fat (>1200% moreenergy than bones) and consuming fat/marrow while butchering. Natives likely influenced huemuldistribution and density in winter ranges due to high incentives (fat) and easiness to kill. Sparseevidence likely stems from surveys in Patagonia being biased toward caves, leaving out transientmovements and camps.Generalist cervids passed the Panama land bridge filter to reach South America. Consideringpaleoclimate, Hippocamelus dispersed east of the Andes, pushed by glaciations even to northeasternBrazil. Hippocamelus would only reach and cross Andes after deglaciations. As mixed feeder, huemulutilized Patagonian steppe. Hunter-gatherers arrived after the last glaciation and influenced the localdistribution of Hippocamelus, especially in northern and central Chile after early adoption ofagricultural lifestyle. Introductions of horses and livestock converted native economies through anequestrian lifestyle and based on millions of introduced animals, which thus affected early writings.Only few records indicate presence of large groups of huemul far from forests and substantial killings.Human-caused range contractions of northern ungulates affected mainly losses at low elevations andmost species persisted in the marginal periphery, including high elevation refuges. Paleoecology,zoogeography, and land use history in southern South American indicate that mountain huemul aresecondary relicts created by impacts of European settlements. We caution against the rigid applicationof modern huemul habitats in interpreting past habitat use, and simply considering the few extra-Andean accounts as abnormal outliers and thus ignoring them.