Until the 1800s, Pampas deer (Ozotoceros bezoarticus) abounded in the grasslands of Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia, its range even extending to southern Brazil’s Cerrado savanna. Since then, though, the deer’s populations have been decimated in the face of relentless cattle-ranching and monocrop-agriculture expansion that has consumed an estimated 99% of the animal’s Pampas-grassland habitat, according to information compiled by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The decrease and fragmentation of the deer’s population has been so severe that experts say they do not have up-to-date information on its current size overall. At the outset of the 1900s, the Pampas deer was believed to be most abundant in Argentina and wild grasslands that at the time covered some 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 sq. miles). By 2004, Argentina’s Environment Ministry had declared Pampas deer “in danger of extinction,” with isolated populations remaining in Buenos... [Log in to read more]