New Park in Argentina Protects 500,000 Penguins

The government of Argentina will create a new marine park along the coast of Patagonia. Located in Golfo San Jorge, the park will protect more than half a million penguins and other rare seabirds.

The park, which includes 250 square miles of coastal waters and nearby islands along nearly 100 miles of shoreline, is a nesting and feeding ground for about quarter million pairs of Magellanic penguin, representing roughly 20 percent of the entire species. The reserve also protects the only two nesting colonies of southern giant petrels on the entire Patagonian coast, as well as the only colonies of Southern American fur seals. Other resident species include the endangered Olrog’s gull, the white-headed steamer duck, and almost a quarter of all imperial and rock cormorants of Argentina.