Location: Osa peninsula Map
Area: 425 km²
Corcovado National Park is situated on Osa peninsula in the Southern Costa Rica. Corcovado National Park covers an extensive area of 425 km². According to National Geographic it is one of the most diverse biospheres not only in Costa Rica, but in the World. The entrance fee for non Costa Rican citizens is $10 per day. You can stay in the park overnight, but you should arrangement in the visitor center in a town of Puerto Jiménez near by. Make sure you clothes and shoes are clean before you enter forest here. Introduction of foreign invasive species may greatly damage other native species that live here.
The park conserves the largest primary forest in
the American Pacific, along with one of the few remnants of
considerable size of tropical rainforest in the world. Logging is
usually carried out in that forest because it is an accessible place
that contains valuable and large trees. However, those habitats are
the richest, biologically speaking. So, even though about half of
the earth's moist tropical forests are still standing, what remains
of these is often not enough to sustain the original biodiversity.
In particular, large animals need a large habitat.
Corcovado,
however, is large enough to sustain important populations of tapir
(Tapirus bairdii) also called tapir, jaguar (Panthera onca) and
mountain pig (Tayassu pecari), species that are considered
endangered, in addition to containing 140 species of mammals (which
represents 10% of the mammal species of the American continent).
Costa Rica itself is considered an ideal place for
ornithologists, and Corcovado contains several hundred species of
birds. Recently the harpy eagle, which was considered extinct in the
area since 1989, has been spotted in the park.
The abundance
in wildlife can be explained in part by the varied vegetation, of
which there are 13 types, including mountain forest (which covers
more than half of the park), mangrove, prairie forest, alluvial
plain forest, forest of swamp and others, which collectively contain
500 species of trees, such as espavel. Another reason for diversity
(which applies to the rest of the country) is that it is located in
a biological corridor of flora and fauna. The average annual
temperature is 27.5 degrees Celsius, but during the day the
temperatures regularly reach 35 degrees.