Catt-Trax 2 - Argentina

Argentina - Gorge of the Condors National Park

Danny Catt — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 08:46:17 -0700

Gorge of the Condors National Park, Argentina

High up on the hills about a 2 hour drive from the city of Cordoba is Quebrada del Condorito National Park (Gorge of the Condors National Park). The park was created in 1996 to protect the breeding cliffs of the Andean Condor and the associated ecosystems of the sierra.

Pampa Landscape in the Gorge of the Condors National Park, Argentina

On one of my last days in Argentina I had a chance to explore the park and walk to the famous gorge in search of condors. The landscape was unique… high elevation grassy pampa mixed with open rocky slopes similar to parts of California or perhaps the Okanagan region of British Columbia. The difference of course is that here in Argentina I did not see Rattlesnakes or Red-tailed Hawks. Instead I was on the lookout for Yarara (pitvipers) and Andean Condors.

Park Sign Warning Visitors to be on the Lookout for Puma and Vipers

One wildlife species that is common to both British Columbia and this region of Argentina (as they were in the Patagonia region of Chile and Argentina) is the Puma (Mountain Lion) and in fact they had signs warning hikers and campers to be on the lookout.

Gorge of the Condors National Park, Argentina

We trekked across the dry rocky ridge tops from the park visitor centre, through the scattered pampa, to the steep gorge, where you will find the cliffs where the condors nest. As we approached the cliffs, a park visitor looked up at us and pointed over to a large black bird perched on a rock, and said with a large grin, ‘condor’! I lifted my binoculars for a closer look and noted the pure black featherless head but saw no white markings on the back of the neck (the nape). “I think that is a Black Vulture,” I said. Condors are actually very large vultures and because the two species at times share similar habitats (like the cliffs of Condorito National Park) the Black Vulture is sometimes mistaken for a condor.

Andean Condor, Gorge of the Condors National Park, Argentina

We sat on a large rock overlooking the gorge and scanned the cliffs. After only a few minutes, way down the steep slope a huge black bird with flat horizontally positioned wings, with white patches on top of the wings, came into view. We could see the white nape and its long finger-like primary feathers on the tips of its wings. Just the sheer huge size of the bird told us that this was an Andean Condor!

Weighing up to 15kg (32 pounds) and with a wingspan of over 3 metres (up to 10.5 feet) this is the largest flying landbird in the world. Because of their enormous size and weight they prefer to live in windy places where they can glide effortlessly on the wind currents. They also typically choose to nest on steep cliffs where to get airborne they can simply jump off, open their wings and glide away!

The Andean Condor is an Endangered Species with an estimated two to three thousand individuals left in the world. They are mountain birds and their range includes mountainous regions of Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador. The Andes Mountains, South America’s longest mountain range, stretch for 7000 kilometres through all of these countries. In fact the Andean Condor is the national bird of a number of South American countries.

If you are interested in winning a prize, do a bit of research and find out which South American countries have the Andean Condor as their national bird. The first person to respond (to my email at dcatt@bcit.ca) with the correct answer will win a prize (which I will send when I return)!

Argentina - School Visits in Rio Cuarto & Cordoba

Danny Catt — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 13:58:26 -0700

Visit to San Ignacio College, Rio Cuarto

When I am back home in British Columbia I volunteer for a program called ‘Scientists and Innovators in the Schools’ coordinated by Science World in Vancouver. As a volunteer scientist I am given the opportunity to visit schools in different parts of the province. During the visits I give presentations about my career, various topics of biology and ecology, conservation and/or career planning for youth in elementary and secondary schools. I typically visit the school ‘physically’ but I have recently given ‘virtual’ school visits where I give presentations on the internet to students who study at home and do not attend formal classes at schools.

Either way, I thoroughly enjoy chatting with students particularly when they are in the process of considering their educational and ultimately their career pathways.

South America is well outside the range of the Scientists in the Schools program but I wanted to visit schools here and thanks to the efforts of my friend Veronica, I was able to visit two schools in Argentina. I was able to share a presentation with the students about my Catt-Trax 2 journey and also describe my own country and explain some of the connections that our two continents, North and South America, share.

Visit to Mark Twain School, Cordoba, Argentina

I also have to thank the administrators and teachers at the two schools, San Ignacio in Rio Cuarto and Mark Twain in Cordoba for being willing to have me drop by and present to their students (thanks Pablo, Virginia, Cocqu, Rodalfo, Pamela and others!).

Visit to Mark Twain School, Cordoba, Argentina

Argentina - Life on the Farm (It's Kind of Laid Back)

Danny Catt — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 10:30:54 -0700

Argentina Sunset - On the Pampa, Cordoba

I have spent very little time on farms in my life. When I traveled in the South Pacific many moons ago I spent a few days on a dairy farm (in Australia) where I even attempted to milk a cow (it is a lot harder than it looks!!). In Argentina I had a chance to spend a few days on a family farm in the province of Cordoba… so I took advantage of the opportunity.

After disembarking the Professor Multanovskiy in Ushuaia, Argentina I hopped a flight to Buenos Aires and then an overnight bus to the community of Rio Cuarto. I was met by a dear friend whom I had met many moons ago when I was a graduate student at SFU. We had kept in touch over the years and I had warned her that at some point I would make it to Argentina for a visit… and here I was!

Their farm has been in the family for generations. Years ago they raised beef cattle (one of Argentina’s largest exports) but in recent years they have been growing crops including maize (corn) and soybeans.

Riding through the Fields of Soybeans & Maize, Cordoba, Argentina

As I learned quickly, farming is a lot of incredibly hard work and along with the long hours there is the stress that goes with it. Farming is risky business – you just never know what Mother Nature is going to have in store for you – will you get drought? Will you get flooded out with too much rain? Will a pest insect, virus or disease cause havoc with the crop? In the case of my friend’s farm the corn crop was significantly damaged this year by a disease – Mal de Rio Cuarto. Mal de Rio Cuarto is the most important disease of maize in Argentina with the value of yield losses reaching more than 120 million USD (country wide).

Corn infected with the Mal de Rio Cuarto disease

The Mal de Rio Cuarto attacks the corn at a very early stage of development and results in very poor development and crop yield. It was a valuable learning experience to see the crops and spend time in the farmed landscape.

Always Smiling Farm Dog

I also had the chance to see a variety of birds of prey on the farm (raptors) from caracaras to hawks to falcons (including the American Kestrel, the smallest falcon found in North America) as well as two species of owl that we also have in British Columbia: the Barn Owl and the Burrowing Owl.

I was kept awake for part of the first night by the Barn Owl who had taken up residence in the chimney of the building I was staying in. I did not realize that the Barn Owl has one of the widest distributions of any bird in the world. The distribution in Canada is limited to south-west BC and southern Ontario but on a global scale they can be found in North, Central and South America, Australia, Asia and Europe! Wow! To see the global distribution of the Barn Owl check out the following website:
http://www.waza.org/virtualzoo/factsheet.php?id=220-001-002-002&view=Strigiformes&main=virtualzoo

Burrowing Owl, Cordoba, Argentina

The Burrowing Owl is also a species with an impressive distribution. It extends from British Columbia (and Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba), down into the US, Central America and all the way down to Patagonia in Chile & Argentina. In British Columbia we are at the very northern range of the Burrowing Owl and it is considered a species at risk in the province. Burrowing Owl habitat is being lost in the province due to agriculture and urban development. There are ongoing efforts, by groups like the Burrowing Owl Conservation Society of BC, to stabilize the population and re-introduce it into areas of its historical range. The BCIT Fish, Wildlife and Recreation Program, has also been involved in this project for the past number of years.

It was great to see so many Burrowing Owls in Argentina as it is a fairly rare sighting to see them in BC.

Tierra del Fuego National Park, Argentina

Danny Catt — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 20:25:09 -0700

At the Southern Tip of Argentina

From Manaus, Brazil I bounced my way southward via a series of short flights that took me to Sao Paulo, Brazil (the largest city in South America … and one of the largest in the world), to Buenos Aires and eventually to Ushuaia, Argentina, the most southerly city on the planet. I was flying from the hot, humid Amazon basin to the cold and snow of Tierra del Fuego. As the plane banked to position itself to make a straight path to the Ushuaia airport runway I got a glimpse of the rugged mountains that surround the city and the fresh blanket of snow that covered the peaks.

Near Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina

I was in Ushuaia to join a small ship heading to the Antarctic Peninsula as this southern-most city is the jump off point for many expedition trips heading to the ice, penguins and marine mammals of Antarctica.

Prior to embarking on my Antarctic adventure, I had the opportunity to visit Tierra del Fuego National Park a beautiful protected area to the west of Ushuaia, right on the border with Chile.

In Spanish, Tierra del Fuego means ‘land of fire’ and although you people might think that it got its name from volcanoes on the island, there are in fact no volcanoes on Tierra del Fuego.

Depending on who you believe the name was given to the island by early explorers to the region either because they saw the smoke from fires used by the area’s aboriginal people (who used fire for cooking and to keep warm) or because of the misty haze that frequently hovers over the island and along its coastlines.

Tierra del Fuego is a group of islands (with one large island which the National Park is located on) and it is also very far south. Both of these factors contribute to the low number of wildlife species in the National Park. There are only 20 species of mammals and about 90 species of birds found in the park.

Ashy-Headed Goose, Tierra del Fuego National Park, Argentina

There is though one introduced mammal species that is causing havoc in the park and in the region in general, and that is the North American Beaver (Castor canadensis). Beavers were brought to Tierra del Fuego by the Argentinean government in an attempt to provide animals for the fur industry. Initially the beavers were in enclosed fur farms. But, the endeavour failed as there were no facilities to process the pelts and there was no market for the furs. The beavers were then released into the wild and from an initial population of about 50 they have increased rapidly to over 100,000!

Huge Beaver Dam, Tierra del Fuego National Park, Argentina

If you visit the park you can see the huge dams created by the beavers. One of the problems of course is that there are no predators to effectively control the number of beavers on the island and in the park. As a result the number of Beavers continues to increase along with their impacts (cutting of trees, damming of rivers and consequent flooding issues).

The management of invasive or non-native species of plants and wildlife has been a problem for natural resource managers for decades. In British Columbia we have hundreds of non-native plant species that require management action: Himalayan blackberry, Scotch broom, purple loosestrife to name a few. (For a site that looks specifically at invasive plants in BC check out:
http://www.agf.gov.bc.ca/cropprot/invasiveplant.htm

There are also non-native wildlife species that cause problems to natural communities of wildlife. An example of an introduced mammal in British Columbia would include the Sitka Black-tailed Deer that were introduced to the Queen Charlotte Islands (and eat a lot of young trees!). Sitka Black-tailed Deer are native to the mainland of BC but not to the Queen Charlotte Islands. Another example would be rats and Raccoons on some of the islands off of our coast where seabirds nest. Many species of seabirds lay their eggs in burrows on the ground and prior to the introduction of rats and Raccoons they had no predators to worry about. But rats and Raccoons are now having a serious impact on some seabird species on the BC coast.

If you want to learn more about non-native species in different parts of the world check out this website: http://www.issg.org/database/welcome/

For a closer look at what the province of British Columbia is doing to deal with non-native, alien or invasive species check out the following: http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/wld/aliensp/alien_consequence.html#alienspframewrk

The End of the Road, Tierra del Fuego National Park, Argentina

Kayaking the Mouth of the Parana River, Argentina

Danny Catt — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 13:00:52 -0800

Kayaking the Mouth of the Parana River

In British Columbia’s lower mainland (Greater Vancouver) we are blessed with the ocean at our doorstep and a broad range of parks and protected areas just minutes outside the city. In winter you can ski or snowshoe on the local mountains and in summer you can sail on the ocean, canoe on a local lake or fish one of the many rivers nearby.

In Argentina, I never expected to be able to explore an ecological wonder within an hour of one of the largest cities in South America (Buenos Aires). Just north of Buenos Aires (about 45 minutes) is the community of Tigre, the jumping off point for a kayak experience that will take you through the rich wetlands and canals at the mouth of South America’s second largest river, the Parana.

The Parana River originates in Brazil, and then flows southward forming a natural boundary between Brazil and Paraguay until it reaches and then joins the Iguazu River. Just above the confluence though, the Parana is dammed by the world’s largest hydro development, the Itaipu Dam. In 2005, this massive hydroelectric plant provided power for over 90% of Paraguay and approximately 20% of Brazil. This one hydroelectric dam produces enough power for the entire state of California alone. Certainly these are admirable achievements and hydro power is often considered ‘clean power’ (compared with coal power for example). But, there were significant social and environmental consequences associated with its construction. Over 10,000 families were forced to relocate when the dam was constructed and the dam’s 1350 square kilometer reservoir drowned Sete Quedas, a set of waterfalls that was apparently as impressive as those at Iguazu. The impacts on wildlife and fisheries were significant but I was not able to find much information about that. What I did find was this report. http://www.american.edu/TED/itaipu.htm

After merging with the Iguazu, the Parana River forms the natural boundary between Paraguay and Argentina. It then turns south, and many hundreds of kilometers later it merges with the Uruguay River to form the Río de la Plata and empties into the Atlantic Ocean. The city of Buenos Aires is located along the Rio de la Plata (not the Atlantic as many might think).

Our Route through the Channels

It was in amongst the canals and wetlands of the estuary of the Parana that we were kayaking. We were accompanied by a fabulous naturalist (thanks Liliana) who was very well versed in the flora and fauna of the region, as well as a world renowned expedition kayaker and kayak designer (thanks Ricardo). We saw kingfishers, a range of songbirds and we even caught a glimpse of an owl that we spooked as we slid along the canals. A wonderful way to experience a very unique region of Argentina.

Paddling Along a Channel of the Parana River

Iguazu Falls, Iguazu National Park, Argentina - What a Place

Danny Catt — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 12:47:52 -0800

Iguazu Falls, Iguazu National Park, Argentina

If someone asked you to list the names of the most famous waterfalls in the world what names would you come up with? For me, some of my choices would include: Niagara Falls (on the border between Ontario and New York State), Victoria Falls (on the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia in Africa), Virginia Falls (the famous waterfall in Nahanni National Park in Canada’s Northwest Territories) and perhaps Angel Falls in Venezuela. But… one that will most certainly be on my list from this day forward is Iguaza Falls on the border between Argentina and Brazil. If you want to find it on a map, pull out a map of South America and put your finger at the southern tip of Paraguay where it meets Argentina and Brazil… and there you will find Iguazu.

Iguazu Falls, Iguazu National Park, Brazil

At the moment I am sitting caked in mud, with a few scrapes and bruises on my shins as well as a few thorns stuck in my ankles. I am a happy camper though. I have to thank BikeHike Adventures in Vancouver for helping put together a number of unique ways of exploring and experiencing Iguazu National Park (on both the Brazilian side of the river and the Argentinean side too).

Many visitors to Iguazu fly in for a very short visit… some arriving at the airport, zipping over to see the falls and then flying out the very same day. Luckily though, our experiences in Iguazu were not as described. We took full advantage of our visit and viewed the falls from both the Argentinean and Brazilian sides and also spent time hiking & mountain biking the park’s trails. We also had an opportunity to repel down a major rock face opposite Iguaza Falls which was a fantastic experience (and a tad scary!).

Iguazu Falls, Iguazu National Park, Brazil

There is more to Iguazu that the hundreds of falls or ‘cataracts’ (between 270 and 300 depending on what you read). There are protected lands (national parks) on both sides of the river – in Argentina and Brazil. The parks protect an extensive chuck of Atlantic rainforest where jaguars, puma, capybara, agouti and dozens of reptiles and amphibians can be found. In fact as we were hiking on one of the park trails we came across the paw print of a jaguar!

Jaguar Paw Print, Iguazu National Park, Argentina

The bird list for the park is extensive and includes everything from toucans (Fruit Loops Birds) to parrots to peregrine falcons! For its international conservation importance Iguazu was declared a World Heritage Site. To find out more check out:

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/303

Jose Calo, Park Ranger, Iguazu National Park, Argentina

We had the great pleasure of spending time with Jose Calo, a park ranger in Argentina’s Iguazu National Park. I felt very fortunate to spend time with such a knowledgeable and experienced fellow. Similar to Canada, Argentina has a system of national parks as well as provincial parks. Examples of their national parks include ‘Los Glaciers’ in Argentina’s Patagonia and Iguazu, perhaps Argentina’s most visited national park. One of Argentina’s most famous provincial parks is Aconcagua. This park was established to protect the highest mountain in South America, Aconcagua, as well as the surrounding landscapes.

Jose has worked in a number of Argentina’s national parks including Lihue Calel, Perito Moreno and Rio Pilcomayo, but seems to have made Iguazu his home. You will be able to read more about Jose on the Conservation in Action page soon! Keep posted.