The Lago Puelo National Park ( es, Parque Nacional Lago Puelo) is a

national park A national park is a natural park in use for conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individual ...

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest ...

, located in the northwest of the

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions out ...

of Chubut, in the

Patagonia Patagonia () refers to a geographical region that encompasses the southern end of South America, governed by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and g ...

region of

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sou ...

. It has an area of . It was created to protect its scenic landscape and the Valdivian flora to augment that of the nearby

Los Alerces National Park Los Alerces National Park ( es, Parque Nacional Los Alerces) is located in the Andes in Chubut Province in the Patagonian region of Argentina. Its western boundary coincides with the Chilean border. Successive glaciations have molded the landsca ...

. Originally an annex to Los Alerces, it was declared a National Park and independent reserve in 1971. The protected area is named after the

Puelo Lake Lake Puelo ( es, Lago Puelo) is a lake located in the northern part of Chubut Province, in Argentine Patagonia. Of fluvial-glacial origin, its deepest point is 180 meters. The narrow L-shaped lake is surrounded by Lago Puelo National Park. The ...

, and belongs to the Patagonic forest and

steppe In physical geography, a steppe () is an ecoregion characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes. Steppe biomes may include: * the montane grasslands and shrublands biome * the temperate gras ...

s and High Andes eco-regions. The mountainous zone where the park lies was modified by the action of

glacier A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires distinguishing features, such a ...

s, which created many rivers and lakes, including Puelo Lake the namesake of the park. The rivers of the region have high levels of glacier sediment (

silt Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed with sand or clay) or as sediment mixed in suspension with water. Silt usually has a floury feel ...

), which gives Puelo Lake its blue color.

Climate

The climate is cold and wet, although more temperate than other parks in the Patagonian region. Mean temperatures range from in winter to in summer. Mean annual precipitation is around , most of it being concentrated between May to August. Occasionally, snowfall can occur during the coldest months.

Flora and fauna

Some of the

flora Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring ( indigenous) native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' gut flora'' or '' skin flora''. ...

of the park belongs to the Valdivian rain forests (avellano, tique, lingue, ulmo). It also includes the ciprés de la cordillera, the coihue, the lenga, the radal, and the arrayán. The '' rosa mosqueta'' is an exotic plant. The

fauna Fauna is all of the animal life present in a particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is '' flora'', and for fungi, it is '' funga''. Flora, fauna, funga and other forms of life are collectively referred to as '' biota''. ...

includes the ''pudú'', the ''huemul'', the red fox, the

cougar The cougar (''Puma concolor'') is a large cat native to the Americas. Its range spans from the Canadian Yukon to the southern Andes in South America and is the most widespread of any large wild terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere. ...

, and the '' coipo''. Among birds we find the ''huala'', the ''pato vapor volador'', the ''bandurria'', the ''pitío'' and the ''zorzal patagónico''. The lake features native fish such as the ''perca'', the ''peladilla'' and the ''puyén grande'', and foreign species of

trout Trout are species of freshwater fish belonging to the genera '' Oncorhynchus'', '' Salmo'' and '' Salvelinus'', all of the subfamily Salmoninae of the family Salmonidae. The word ''trout'' is also used as part of the name of some non-salm ...

History

The first settlers of the region were

hunter-gatherer A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fung ...

s who lived in the steppe and employed stone tools to hunt

guanaco The guanaco (; ''Lama guanicoe'') is a camelid native to South America, closely related to the llama. Guanacos are one of two wild South American camelids, the other being the vicuña, which lives at higher elevations. Etymology The guanaco ...

s. There are

cave painting In archaeology, Cave paintings are a type of parietal art (which category also includes petroglyphs, or engravings), found on the wall or ceilings of caves. The term usually implies prehistoric origin, and the oldest known are more than 40,000 ye ...

s within the park, apparently showing representations of paths into the forest. Nowadays

Mapuche The Mapuche ( (Mapuche & Spanish: )) are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who s ...

communities live in the eastern part of the park.

References

Sources

Administración de Parques Nacionales
— National Parks Administration of Argentina (in Spanish and English) {{authority control Protected areas of Chubut Province National parks of Argentina Protected areas established in 1971 Biosphere reserves of Argentina Valdivian temperate rainforest