Ateam of specialists from the Chilean Rewilding Foundation and park rangers of the National Forest Corporation of Chile (CONAF), encountered a group of ten huemules in the region of Cape Froward on the Southwestern tip of the continent. This is actually the southernmost point of continental South America.
It is a remote and wild area, and there is a proposal to turn it into a National Park.
The huemul, or Southern Andean deer (Hippocamelus bisulcus) is an endangered species that lives in the Andean forests in both Chile and Argentina's Patagonia. Roughly 1,500 of them live in the wild, barely 1% of their original population before the Europeans reached the area in the mid 1850s.
This deer's original range was large, from central Chile (34° S) to the Strait of Magellan (54° S). Now it lives in fragmented groups.
Their presence in Tierra del Fuego Island is debated, one paper reports that it "is largely speculative and poorly documented. Charles Darwin (1871) registered in his voyage of 1834 the presence of a “deer” on the Island, and the Argentine explorer Ramón Lista (1881) included the “Cervus chilensis” in the zoology of the island. Moreover, up to the present, there is general agreement in the absence of Hippocamelus sp. in the Island."
Charles Darwin, in fact, wrote that "the deer has never seen south of the Strait of Magellan."
The journals of explorers, scientists, and settlers reported that these deer didn't fear humans. They seldom encountered natives in the dense forests (the natives were reluctant to enter the woods, and feared spirits and monsters that they believed lived there), and when they came across the Euro-American people, they didn't run away. They were hunted very easily and nearly became extinct.
The Tehuelche people that lived on the eastern side of the Andean forests did not interact frequently with the huemul because they did not venture into the animal’s habitat, the forests. Chief Kánkel, who lived a few kilometers from the Andean Forests by the Apeleg, Senguel, and Mayo Rivers in what is now the Argentine province of Chubut, had never eaten huemul meat until Welsh explorer ap Iwan shot one during an expedition in the late 1800s.
The huemul is related to the taruca (Hippocamelus antisensis) that lives in the dryer Andes range north of Patagonia, in Chile, Argentina, Peru, and Bolivia, which is vulnerable but not on the brink of extinction.
It is a medium-sized deer roughly 1.5 to 1.8 m long (4.5 to 6 ft.) and a shoulder height of around 90 cm (3 ft); it ways between 70 and 100 kg (154 to 220 lb). It appears on the Chilean coat of arms, with the condor.
Among the the Alakaluf or Kawésqar people who lived on the west an northwestern shores of Tierra del Fuego Island, and on the SW tip of Chile north of the Strait of Magellan, there was a myth about the huemul:
A couple had managed to survive the great flood (a Noachian flood) but were cold and helpless, and dreamed about fire. Then they saw a huemul enter their hut with embers and burning coals on its antlers, they took them and managed to make fire. Since then they consider the huemul as the bearer of fire, and they did not hunt it. (Source)
Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall ©
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