Monte León National Park is located 28 mi (45 km) Southeast of Puerto Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz Province in Argentina.
Location: 28 mi (45 km) Southeast of Puerto Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz Province Map
Info: 9 de Julio and Belgrano, Puerto Santa Cruz
Open: Nov- Apr: daily
Monte León National Park was found in 2002 and it is considered to be the youngest Argentina natural reserve. You can get here by joining an organized day trips from the nearby city of Rio Gallegos. Monte León National Park stretch for 36 km along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. Its marine wild life include colonies of Magellanic penguins that number in over 60,000 individuals. Park boasts as the fourth largest penguin colony in South America. Other guests frequent the area of Monte León National Park are sea lions that come ashore to bask on the sun. Other marine mammals include Australian dolphins, whales and many species of sea birds.
Keep in mind that coastal cliffs are periodically flooded by the waves of the ocean so exploration of quiet bays and secluded caves should be avoided whenever possible. You don't want to be trapped in one of these traps. One of the most intersting tourist destinations in Monte León National Park is the island of Monte León, which is fully occupied by seabirds. It is forbidden to get on the island so humans won't disturb local nests, but you can do plenty of bird watching as you sail around its rocky cliffs and beaches.
Additionally Monte León National Park covers area of Patagonian plains with the typical vegetation and its inhabitants. Here you can encounter guanacos, pumas, ostriches, rheas and many other animals and birds. A small hotel at the entrance of Monte León National Park is open to the public. It is housed in a former sheep farm that was baught by the administration of the park.
Previous story
About 10 millennia ago groups of hunter-gatherers
took advantage of coastal environments and their varied resources such
as birds, rodents, camelids, molluscs and sea lions. The Tehuelche
groups, descendants of the first settlers, expanded the use of the
territory, developing a greater exchange with more distant groups. The
arrival of the white man was the reason for great modifications in the
original populations. The gradual dependence on exchange products and
the loss of territory caused the migration to the west of the province
and the incorporation to rural tasks.
During the presidency of
Nicolás Avellaneda at the beginning of 1876, authorizations were granted
in the city of Buenos Aires for the exploitation of guano in this place
located 35 km south of the Santa Cruz River, at whose mouth Commander
Luis Piedrabuena since 1859. In this way, a small stable village was
founded for the tasks and in April 1859, the news reached the Chilean
governor of Punta Arenas, Diego Dublé Almeyda, who sent the gunboat
Magallanes, taking the French boat prisoner Jeanne-Amélie, who had
Argentine permission and who would sink entering the Strait of Magellan,
further worsening the binational situation.
Francisco P. Moreno
(driver of the Argentine national park system) visited the area at the
end of the 19th century, as would Carlos Ameghino and Father Alberto De
Agostini.
The Monte León ranch belonged to The Southern Patagonia
Sheep Farming Company Limited. This large sheep farm was sold in 1920 to
the Braun family, who continued with this activity until 2006. The
extraction of guano was important until 1930.
Creation and
legislation
In 1996 the inclusion of Monte León in the National
System of Protected Areas of Argentina was proposed. On September 26,
1996, the Santa Cruz Legislature passed Law No. 2445, which created the
Isla de Monte León provincial reserve.
Francisco Erize, former
director of the National Parks Administration, recommended the project
to Douglas Tompkins, an American environmentalist and businessman,
director of the conservation NGO The Conservation Land Trust.
In
2000, through the NGO Conservacion Patagonica —directed by his wife:
Kristine Tompkins— the lands were acquired, until then destined for
sheep farming, and transferred to the Fundación Vida Silvestre Argentina
through a trust signed on 27 of April 2001, but with the imposition that
the property title of the same be transferred to the National Parks
Administration so that the final destination of the area is to integrate
the federal system of protected areas of Argentina.4 The initial surface
was of 55,998.55 ha, but later the trust was modified to add 4,800 ha to
Estancia Doraique.
In 2002 the lands that make up the protected
area were donated to the National State by the Fundación Vida Silvestre
Argentina.
Law No. 2671 of the province of Santa Cruz sanctioned
on March 11, 2004 -and promulgated by Decree No. 789/2004- ceded
ownership and jurisdiction of the area to the National State so that it
could be used to create a national park, with the exception of the Isla
de Monte León provincial reserve.
The area
The fundamental
reason for its creation is based on the fact that it constitutes a
representative sample of Patagonian coastal biodiversity in a good state
of conservation, with sites of paleontological value. In this region
there is an important colony of Magellanic penguins, made up of 60,000
pairs of penguins. It is the fourth largest colony in the country.
This coastal-marine park is located in the southeast of the province
of Santa Cruz, on RN 3, 210 km north of Río Gallegos. The protected area
in its continental portion is 61,700 ha, it also has 36 km of coastline
and an intertidal zone.
The national park is on the coast of
Bahía Grande (eastern limit of the province of Santa Cruz) at km 2385 of
RN 3, 45 km southeast of Puerto Santa Cruz. It extends from about 2 km
northeast of Pico Quebrado to about 2.5 km southwest of "Jack Canyon." A
Marine Protected Area is included, 5 km from the coast along the coast
of the national park. It is planned to incorporate a marine area of at
least the same size as the continental area.
Monte León belongs
to the ecoregions of the Argentine sea and the Patagonian steppe. This
represents the middle and lower basins of the Atlantic slope rivers and
certain endorheic basins. With a cold and dry climate with winter
rainfall of less than 400 mm, strong winds from the West, dry summers
and frost almost all year round. Its vegetation is bushy, in the form of
scrubby bushes and xerophytic herbaceous plants.
Landscapes, flora and fauna
Area made up of high cliffs, islands,
rocks, small bays and restinga beaches that are discovered at low tide.
The coastal sector represents about 1% of the Argentine maritime
coastline. The sea in this region is cold, with a significant population
of fish. The national park has colonies of cormorants, terns, penguins
and 20 other species of coastal and sea birds. From the coast, you can
occasionally see colonies of one-hair sea lions and cetaceans, such as
the southern right whale.
There is an important colony of
Magellanic penguins, made up of 60,000 individuals. It is the 4th
largest colony in the country. Pairs each year migrate to find their
nest.
On the island of Monte León and on the cliffs, 3 species of
cormorants find refuge and nest: the rock, the gray and the imperial.
One of the reasons for the creation of the park is to protect an
important portion of the coastal Patagonian steppe, the habitat of
guanacos, rheas, foxes and pumas.
The Patagonian steppe, at first
sight arid, is home to a considerable number of plant species. In the
springs that follow a winter with a lot of snow or rain, you can see the
spectacular flowering of the desert, including small flowers such as the
topa-topa, the fragrant white flower of the black bush and many others.
Carlos Spegazzini, considered the founder of botany in Argentina,
was in the Monte León area in 1881 as part of an Italian scientific
expedition. There he identified hitherto unknown grass species.
Wild thyme was widely used in indigenous cuisine. The resin from the
calafate was used as "chewing gum" by the Tsoneca aborigines, a custom
to which the chroniclers attribute the good health and cleanliness of
their teeth. Other species have medicinal virtues.
Phytogeographically, the area is characteristic of the central
Patagonian phytogeographic subdistrict of Santa Cruz, of the central
Patagonian phytogeographic district, one of the phytogeographic
districts into which the Patagonian phytogeographic province is divided.
According to data from the National Parks Administration, some of
the most characteristic plant species in the Monte León area are:
Anarthrophyllum rigidum (kills guanaco)
Atriplex sagittifolia
(gobbler)
Berberis heterophylla (calafate)
Bromus setifolius
(barley)
Calceolaria sp.
Chuquiraga aurea (quilimbay)
Distichlis sp. (salt grass)
Festuca gracillima (coirón fueguino)
Hordeum comosum (fox tail)
Lephydophyllum cupressiforme (green bush)
Nardophyllum obtusifolium (crooked bush)
Nassauvia glomerulosa (piche
tail)
Nassauvia ulicina (piche tail)
Poa ligularis (coiron poa)
Schinus polygamus (molle)
Stipa psylantha (feather coiron)
Stipa
speciosa (bitter or hard coirón)
Verbena tridens (black bush)
Management
By resolution No. 126/2011 of the National Parks
Administration of May 19, 2011, it was established that the national
park would be classified for administrative purposes in the category
protected areas of complexity III, for which it is headed by a
designated intendant, On which 4 departments depend (Administration;
Works and Maintenance; National Park Rangers; Conservation and Public
Use) and the Dispatch and Entry, Exit, and Notifications Desk division.
The Intendancy has its headquarters in the city of Puerto Santa Cruz.