Mindanao mountain brown deer (Rusa marianna nigella)

A poorly known deer endemic to Mindanao, surviving in fragmented highland forests increasingly threatened by hunting and habitat loss.

Context

A herd of Mindanao mountain brown deer photographed within a large natural enclosure at Eden Resort, on the slopes of Mount Apo near Davao City, Mindanao (Philippines).

 

Field notes

The Philippine brown deer has a dark brown coloration and this particular subspecies seems to have the darkest richest brown fur of all known subspecies as far as I observed.

In Eden Resort, the herd lives in a huge enclosure enclosure composed of forest patches, slopes, and open grassland areas that closely resemble natural habitat conditions. Numerous births are recorded there each year.

In recent decades, observations of wild Philippine brown deer have become increasingly rare, as populations have grown extremely wary due to intense hunting pressure. Today, the Eden Resort population probably represents one of the best opportunities to observe and photograph this poorly known Mindanao subspecies at close range.

 

Key facts

The Philippine brown deer is a relatively small deer species, being found in most big islands of the Philippines except the Western Visayas and Palawan. Four subspecies are being recognized and two of them occur on Mindanao, one in lowland forests and subspecies nigella (shown here) in the mountains.

Several isolated Philippine deer populations may eventually prove to represent undescribed subspecies, particularly some populations from Leyte. The species has also been introduced to Guam and other Micronesian islands, where the absence of natural predators has allowed deer populations to expand and damage native vegetation through overgrazing.

The species will feed in more open areas such as grasslands but will need nearby forest for sheltering during the day. Filipino scientists have described this deer as being a forest species that forages in grasslands.

 

Conservation

The species is currently assessed as Vulnerable by the IUCN Red List. Most populations are now isolated and fragmented due to habitat destruction, while illegal hunting continues to cause significant declines across much of the species’ original range.

On Mindanao, the taxonomic status of the two currently recognized subspecies still requires clarification in order to determine whether they represent distinct forms or a single variable population occupying different elevations. Differences in size and coloration have already been noted, but detailed genetic studies are still lacking.

At present, no specific conservation program exists for the Mindanao populations of the Philippine brown deer. While conservation initiatives have been developed for the highly threatened Mindoro subspecies, similar efforts are now urgently needed on Mindanao, where habitat loss is becoming increasingly severe and threatens many endemic species and subspecies.

 

More photos from this observation

 

Other species from Mindanao can be found by browsing my Education resources.

 

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