The Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society has just announced that its efforts to protect a wildlife-rich coastal region in South America. The Government of Argentina has signed into law a new coastal marine park. It is said that the park, which became official in early December protects half a million penguins along with several species of rare seabirds and the region’s only population of South American fur seals.
The Society informed that it is the first protected area in Argentina specifically designed to safeguard not only onshore breeding colonies but also areas of ocean where wildlife feed at sea. This new park is a joint effort by the National Parks Service of Argentina, Government of Chubut, Wildlife Conservation Society and its local partner Fundación Patagonia Natural with support from the United Nations Development Programme and the Global Environment Facility.
According to WCS researchers there is critical data of key wildlife to ensure that the park’s boundaries would include both onshore areas and adjacent waters. Researchers found that rising pressure by commercial fishing and the oil industry make it compulsory for the area to be protected. Dr. Guillermo Harris, director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Argentina Program, told that the park protects one of the most productive and extraordinary marine ecosystems on the planet.
The park is located in Golfo San Jorge in Chubut Province, some 1056 miles (1700 kilometers) south of Buenos Aires, the new protected area covers approximately 250 square miles (647 square kilometers) of coastal waters and nearby islands strung along almost 100 miles (160 kilometers) of shoreline. Mitsubishi Corporation Foundation for the Americas has provided the funds. The region serves as a nesting and feeding ground for some quarter million pairs of Magellanic penguin, estimated to represent 25 percent of the entire population in Patagonia.
