A roadmap to an evolutionarily significant conservation strategy for Cervus corsicanus

Recent conservation history of Cervus corsicanus Erxleben, 1777 is reviewed and future prospects discussed in the framework of increasing knowledge of its evolutionary history. This unique deer is definitively not native to Sardinia and Corsica but owes its survival to a protohistoric assisted colonization by humans. Accordingly, populations in Sardinia (and Corsica) should be managed to maintain maximum genetic diversity while minimizing ecological and economic damages in an unbalanced island ecosystem that must be perceived as “ex situ” from the evolutionary history of the deer. It is increasingly important that steps are taken to reintroduce Cervus corsicanus back to the Italian Peninsula.