MUSK DEER

Moschus spp.

Physical Description

There are probably about five species of Musk deer. Four of these species, including the Forest or Dwarf Musk Deer (Moschus berezovskii), the Black or Dusky Musk Deer (M. fuscus), the Alpine Musk Deer (M. sifanicus or M. chrysogaster leucogaster), and the Himalayan Musk Deer (M. chrysogaster crysogaster), occur in Tibet.

The Musk Deer’s fur is long, thick, coarse, and wavy. The color of the Deer’s coat varies among species, ranging from golden to grayish brown.

The Musk Deer’s rump and flanks are darker than the rest of its coat, while the Deer’s belly and genital regions are lighter. The Musk Deer’s ears are long and rounded and are usually lined with white fur. The tips of the Deer’s ears may be coloured white or cream to dark brown. The Musk Deer’s tail measures from four to six centimetres (1.6 to 2.4 inches) and is hairless except for a tuft of hair at the tip. The Alpine Musk Deer has a wide cream-coloured stripe from its chest to its chin and several yellow blotches on the nape of its neck. Young Musk deer have white spots.

The Musk Deer’s morphology is halfway between that of chevrotains, or mouse deer, and true deer. Unlike true deer, the Musk Deer lacks facial glands and antlers. Furthermore, the Musk Deer has a gall bladder, a caudal gland, and a musk gland, none of which are found in true deer.

The caudal gland, located at the base of the Musk Deer’s tail, secretes a foul-smelling, thick yellow substance. The musk gland, from which the Musk Deer’s name derives, is present only in male Musk deer. Visible externally, the musk gland develops between the genitals and the navel of males during their third year of sexual maturity. During the Musk Deer’s breeding season, the musk, or katsuri, produced in the musk glands of males is a dark red brown granular powder with a strong smell. In the months before and after the breeding season, however, the musk is pasty, white, and only smells slightly.

The Musk Deer has long, curved canine teeth that project well below its lips. When the Deer’s mouth is closed, the canines point backwards, but when the Deer’s mouth is open, a muscle in the Deer’s jaws pulls the canines upright. The Musk Deer’s canines grow continuously but areeasily broken. The canines of males typically measure  from seven to ten centimetres (three to four inches) in length. The canines of females are shorter.

In many ways, the Musk Deer actually looks like a large wooly hare, especially when it is curled up and sleeping. In addition to having hare-like ears, the Musk Deer’s hind legs are almost a third longer than the Deer’s forelegs. The Musk Deer also has dew claws and large feet. The Deer measures about 86 to 100 centimetres (2.8 to 3.3 feet) from head to tail. The Musk Deer stands 51 to 53 centimetres (20 to 21 inches) tall at the shoulder and 55 centimetres (22 inches) tall at the rump. The Deer weighs between 10 to 18 kilograms (22 to 40 pounds).

 

Habitat

The Musk Deer inhabits alpine forests and scrub. The Deer is typically found at elevations between 2,200 and 4,300 metres (7,250 to 14,200 feet), and is rarely found below 1,000 metres (3,280 feet). The Forest Musk Deer occurs in Tibet, the Chinese provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan, Qinghai, Gansu, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Ningxia, Guizhou, Anhui, Hubei, Hunan, and Guangxi, Laos, and northeastern Vietnam. The Forest Musk Deer inhabits high mountains and mixed coniferous and broadleaf forests.

The Black Musk Deer is found in southeastern Tibet, western Yunnan province in China, Nepal’s Everest region, Assam and Sikkim in India, Bhutan, and Burma (Myanmar). Mountainous areas of Tibet and China where the Black Musk Deer has been spotted include the counties of Dzayul (Chayu), Metog (Motuo), Menling (Milin), and Bijang, and the Gaoligong Nature Reserve.

The Alpine Musk Deer is endemic to the Tibetan Plateau, occurring in Tibet, the Chinese provinces of Qinghai, western Sichuan, Yunnan, Ningxia, and Xingjiang, and India. The Alpine Musk Deer prefers high mountains and plateau, meadows, shrub, and coniferous forest.

The Himalayan Musk Deer is confined to the Himalayas, occurring in Tibet, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, and Bhutan. Alpine Musk deer are usually distributed in the western Himalayas, while Himalayan Musk deer are distributed in the eastern Himalayas. The Indian states in which Alpine and/or Himalayan Musk deer are found include Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Sikkim, and Arunachal Pradesh.

 

Eating Habits

The Musk Deer is a herbivorous ruminant that consumes over 130 different species of plants. The Deer’s diet includes forbs, grasses, leaves, buds, flowers, young shoots, coniferous needles, and the bark of trees including mountain ash, aspen, maple, willow, bird cherry, and honeysuckle. The Musk Deer also eats twigs, mosses, and lichens. When weather conditions are harsh, arboreal lichens and some terrestrial bushy lichens may compose roughly 70 percent of the contents of the Deer’s stomach.

 

Behaviour and Reproduction

The Musk Deer is most active at night or at dawn and dusk. The Deer prefers to take shelter within dense vegetation and brush during the daylight hours. Except during the breeding season, the Musk Deer is a solitary animal. The Deer is also strongly territorial. The territory of a female deer typically encompasses about 0.5 square kilometres (0.2 square miles). A male deer’s territory may overlap the territories of several females. Due to the sophistication of the Musk Deer’s scent glands, communication between individual deer is believed to be based primarily on their sense of smell. The deer rub their caudal glands against plants and males release musk in their urine during certain times of the year.

Musk deer squat when urinating or defecating, and all the deer within a particular area tend to defecate in the same spot. The Musk Deer does not migrate seasonally.

The Musk Deer reaches sexual maturity at around 1.5 years of age. The Deer mates from November to January. The Musk Deer’s gestation period is much shorter than that of true deer, lasting only 180 to 200 days. Most births take place in May and June, each doe giving birth to one fawn, or to twins. Fawns may hide for up to two months after birth. Fawns are weaned after a few months, but stay with their mothers for up to two winters.

The Musk Deer is a shy animal. The Deer emits a loud double hiss when it is alarmed and may scream when injured. The Musk Deer escapes its predators by climbing leaning trees, taking refuge in thick foliage, or fleeing. The Deer’s long hind legs make it an agile jumper, able to take broad leaps up to six metres (19 feet) in length and to change directions quickly. The Musk Deer’s natural predators include snow leopards and common leopards, lynx, wolves, foxes, and Yellow-throated martens. Young deer are also vulnerable to birds of prey, and sometimes even to crows. The Musk Deer’s life span is eight to ten years, for deer in the wild, and about 15 years for deer in captivity.

 

Present Status

All of the species of Musk deer found in Tibet are categorized as Lower Risk: Near Threatened in the 2003 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Musk Deer populations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, and Bhutan are listed under Appendix I of CITES. All other Musk Deer populations are included in Appendix II of CITES. Musk Deer are under second class protection in China. The Musk Deer is included in Schedule I, Part I of the Indian Wild Life (Protection) Act of 1972. Unfortunately, enforcement of these laws is often minimal, and the numbers of Musk deer continue to decline throughout the Deer’s distribution. Today, the total population of Musk deer may number 400,000 to 800,000. There were 2 to 3 million Musk deer in China and Tibet in the 1950s; now, there are probably only about 220,000 to 320,000.

 

Threats to Survival

The Musk Deer’s survival is threatened most seriously by poaching. The Musk Deer’s meat is not considered delicious, nor is the Deer’s pelt valuable, since the hairs fall out so easily. Poaching of the Musk Deer is rather driven by the commercial demand for musk. Musk, or latsi, is used in traditional medicines, perfumes, and cosmetic products that include shampoos and conditioners. Musk is used in traditional medicine to treat heart, nerve, skin, abdominal, and breathing ailments. At least 300 different East Asian pharmaceutical preparations contain musk, and musk may also be found in some European homeopathic medicines. Synthetic musk is replacing natural musk in perfumes and cosmetics, but natural musk is still used in several perfumes, especially in France.

Musk is only produced in the musk gland of mature male Musk deer. Each musk gland, or “pod”, yields about 15 to 25 grams (0.5 to 1 ounce) of musk. The highest quality of musk is that produced during the Musk Deer’s breeding season, in the winter. Musk deer have been hunted for musk for thousands of years, but it is only in the last century that hunters have begun to employ guns and wire snares in their efforts.

Unfortunately, snares are indiscriminate, trapping not only their targets – male Musk deer – but also female and young Musk deer and other animals. In general, out of every three Musk deer trapped, only one is a male with a musk gland large enough to be profitable. Between 1991 and 1992, local forestry staff destroyed 62,800 snares in the country of Chamdo (Changdu) in central Tibet alone.

Ninety percent of the musk traded internationally is in the form of medicines or raw musk. In the past, most of the musk pods collected in China were traded within China’s domestic market, through local medicine companies. Now, much of the musk harvested in China is exported abroad. Demand for musk exists wherever there are significant Asian populations. In China, the annual demand for musk is 500 to 1,000 kilograms. Between 1981 and 1985, the demand for musk in Japan was 215 to 300 kilograms per year. Western countries involved in the musk trade include, but are not limited to, France, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

France imported 100 kg of raw musk from East Asia from 1980 to 1995. Because the worldwide demand for musk currently exceeds the supply, the price of musk is increasing. The price of musk now ranges from about US$12-15 per gram, in Europe and South Korea, to US$50 per gram in France.

Musk deer farms began to be established in China in 1958, and there were more than 3,000 Musk deer in captivity in such farms by the 1980s. Musk deer are difficult to manage and breed, though, because they are solitary, territorial, and excitable, and the farms themselves have suffered due to insufficient funds, poor equipment, lack of skilled workers, low quality buildings, and harsh climatic conditions. As a result, many Musk deer farms have been closed in recent years. There are now about 1,900 deer on farms.

The primary purpose of farming Musk deer in China is to gather musk, but all Chinese Musk deer farms combined only produce about 5 kilograms of musk per year. Though it is possible to remove musk from males without killing the deer, the experience can be traumatizing for the deer. The main causes of death of Musk deer on farms are trauma, pneumonia, and diarrhea.

Though poaching is the primary threat to the Musk Deer’s survival, habitat destruction has also been detrimental to the Deer. The forests in which the Musk Deer makes its home have been converted to human settlements and agricultural areas and have been chopped down for timber and fuel wood. In northwestern China, where the Musk Deer inhabits more open landscapes, the Musk Deer must compete with neighboring livestock for forage. The livestock enter the forests when their pastures have become overgrazed.

 

References

Deer Specialist Group, 1996: 2003 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, http://www.redlist.org. See also: http://iibce.edu.uy/citogenetica/

deer/dsgwww/en3.htm, Aug 2004.

Gam, Gabriel, Feb 2002: ADW: Moschus chrysogaster: Information, Animal Diversity Web, http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/

accounts/information/Moschus_chrysogaster.html

Huffman, Brent, Ultimate Ungulate Fact Sheet – Himalayan Musk Deer, http://www.ultimateungulate.com/Artiodactyla/

Moschus_chrysogaster.html, Aug 2004.

PBS, The Living Edens: Bhutan – Animal Archive – Musk Deer, http://www.pbs.org/edens/bhutan/a_md.htm, Aug 2004.

TRAFFIC, 2002: TRAFFIC Factfile: Musk Deer, http://www.traffic.org/factfile/factfile_muskdeer.html, Sept 2004.

Zhigang, Jiang, International cooperation on conservation of endangered species: Ch. 16-1: Musk Deer, http://www.chinabiodiversity.com/

shengwudyx2/training/chapter16-1.htm, Sept 2004.

Zhou, Yijun, Meng, Xiuxiang, Feng, Jinchao, Yang, Qisen, Feng, Zuojian, Xia, Lin, and Bartos, Ludok, June 2004: Review of the distribution,

status, and conservation of musk deer in China, Folia Zool – 53(2): pp129-140, http://www.ivb.cz/folia/53/2/129-140.pdf, Sept 2004.

By: Environment and Development Desk, DIIR, CTA.