Tibetan red deer
subspecies of mammal
The Tibetan red deer (Cervus canadensis wallichi) also known as shou, is a subspecies of elk/wapiti native to the southern Tibetan highlands and Bhutan. Once believed to be near-extinct, its population has increased to over 8,300, the majority of which live in a 120,000-hectare nature reserve established in 1993 in Riwoqê County, Qamdo Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region, China.
Some have been kept at the beginning of the 20th century in London, and in a small zoo south of Lhasa.
Description
The Tibetan red deer is relatively massive built with short legs and a large, square muzzle. The winter fur is light sandy-brown, except the grayish face. The summer coat is slate-gray. The large, white rump patch, which includes the short tail, has no dark rim as it is seen in the Sichuan deer, for example. Those from the eastern part of the range have a dark dorsal line and represent probably the C. c. affinis type, which is now usually included in the shou.
Relationships and range
Tibetan red deer, along with Sichuan deer and Kansu red deer, forms the southern group of wapiti.
The public source identifies “Tibetan red deer” as subspecies of mammal. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Tibetan, deer and subspecies.
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Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q742925. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1993.
Scientific names, classifications and consensus can change while older terminology persists in catalogues and historical literature. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tibetan red deer” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.