Alpine musk deer

The mammal

The alpine musk deer is a small deer (40–60 cm tall) with long upper canines that do not hide within the mouth.

Range and habitat

The alpine musk deer inhabits coniferous and deciduous forests in the mountain regions of western China, Tibet, Sichuan and Gansu at elevations of 3,000–5,000 m (9,800–16,400 ft). In Nepal, it occurs in Khaptad, Sagarmatha, Shey-Phoksundo, Langtang, Makalu Barun National Parks, Annapurna, Kanchenjunga Conservation Areas and Dhorpatan Hunting Reserve. Mountain caves and shrubs form ideal habitat.

Habitat labels include forest.

Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.

Diet

The alpine musk deer is a ruminant herbivore, foremost a browser and feeds mainly on forbs, grasses, moss, lichens, and shoots, leaves and twigs of shrubs. Since they are solitary animals, observing them in captivity is difficult.

In crisis

The main threat to the alpine musk deer is poaching for its musk, that is used in cosmetic products. Poaching and continued demand for musk is the main threat in Nepal and Uttarakhand. Due to illegal hunting and habitat loss, the alpine musk deer has become an endangered species in China.

Since the demand for musk has increased internationally the supply from musk deer farms has been exceeded, putting even more pressure on the wild population.

Alpine musk deer is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.

Sources

Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Alpine musk deer, Wikidata item Q288881. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.