First huemul recovered at Rescue and Rehabilitation Center in the Aysén region returns to its natural habitat

After nearly a month of specialized care, the first rehabilitated huemul from the Huemul Rescue and Rehabilitation Center was released. The facility, inaugurated in October 2025, is located in the Las Horquetas sector, adjacent to Cerro Castillo National Park in the Aysén region, where one of the main refuges for the species is found.

The rehabilitated specimen is an adult male huemul, which presented abscesses caused by the bacterium *Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis*, an infectious agent diagnosed in 2015 in Cerro Castillo National Park. This bacterium is transmitted by domestic livestock, causing caseous lymphadenitis, which does not manifest in the same way in huemuls.

After receiving wildlife therapy without achieving the expected results, the Agricultural and Livestock Service (SAG) arranged for the huemul to be admitted to the center to undergo the most appropriate treatment for its recovery. Once the planned treatment was completed, the veterinary team of Fundación Rewilding Chile concluded that the specimen had responded optimally to the treatment, coordinating its release with the SAG, thus becoming the first rehabilitated huemul to be discharged from the center and return to its natural habitat.

“It is remarkable because it is the first huemul rehabilitation center in Chile, and it is important to highlight and support this with all the strength of state institutions because it is the protection of our own native fauna, which is on our national coat of arms,” commented Eugenio Canales, Regional Secretary of the Environment for the Aysén region.

For his part, the regional director of the Biodiversity and Protected Areas Service (SBAP), Claudio Aguirre, valued that the interconnected work between public and private institutions is bearing fruit. “We see how a species that is a natural monument and protected by Chilean law is cared for, rehabilitated, healed, and returned to its natural habitat, with the idea of doing the same with other specimens that may be affected by disease or accidents,” he said.

Guillermo Díaz, head of Natural Resources at SAG Aysén, highlighted the existence of the facility. “We have been working for many years on the rehabilitation and health care of huemuls, but we did not have a place for long-term treatment. We hope that this first patient will be one of many huemuls that, unfortunately, may arrive sick, but now with a greater hope of survival, reintegration, and rehabilitation,” he indicated.

Likewise, Mario Alegría, administrator of Cerro Castillo National Park, stated that the existence of the center is a new opportunity for a species in danger of extinction, with a very low population in Chile. Furthermore, he notes that “10% of it is concentrated in Cerro Castillo, and the release of this specimen is a great opportunity to continue treating other huemuls with this same disease and with some other injuries.”

For Sebastián Riestra, Wildlife Coordinator of Fundación Rewilding Chile, the return of this deer to the wild is a symbol of hope amid the efforts made to prevent its extinction: “That a huemul that had a serious pathology transmitted by domestic livestock has today been recovered at the center and can return to freedom in better conditions than when it entered, opens a path of joy and makes us think that we can indeed recover this species, with direct work, generating concrete results.”

About the center

The first Huemul Rescue and Rehabilitation Center in Chile is dedicated exclusively to the recovery of the southernmost deer in the world, a species in danger of extinction. It is estimated that around 1,500 individuals survive, distributed in fragmented populations between Chile and Argentina, representing approximately 1% of its original population.

This true “huemul hospital” is located on a property adjacent to Cerro Castillo National Park, where extensive livestock farming took place for several decades until 2019. The grazing of thousands of heads of sheep and cattle, along with habitat fragmentation through the installation of fences and roads, generated strong pressure on wildlife, which also facilitated the transmission of infectious agents from domestic livestock to the huemul, as in the case of this individual. The disease caused by the bacterium is known in livestock farming as Caseous Lymphadenitis (CLA).

In Chile, rehabilitation and rescue centers are defined by the Hunting Law 19,473 as spaces intended for the recovery of wildlife affected by human activities, serving as transit zones towards their reintegration, which can occur in protected areas or other areas of their habitat. To operate legally, these facilities must be registered in the SAG's National Registry of Wildlife Keepers. The admission of any individual must be reported to this Service, and if it is not in physical or behavioral condition to live in the wild, the regulations contemplate the option of sending it to breeding centers.

It is important to highlight that the creation and operation of the center are part of the “Huemul Corridor,” a large-scale conservation strategy that seeks to connect populations and reinforce the recovery of this species along the Andes, and which Fundación Rewilding Chile, together with the Ministry of Agriculture, CONAF, and the SAG, have been promoting since 2023. “We want to identify where huemuls are, what their threats are, and try to avoid them so that the huemul population can grow. Hopefully, we will have more releases and that in the not-too-distant future we will be talking about huemul populations having recovered, that there are more individuals, and that it is no longer in danger of extinction,” states Riestra.