Written by Kadin Woolever (Carleton College)
Photos by Adam Spencer.
After a couple days in a Coyhaique hostel we squeezed all of our backpacks and gear into our trucks, Blanquita and Blue Steel, and drove south to Lago Paloma. There we found an incredible view of the lake and a few Andean condors in front of the mountains of Cerro Castillo National Reserve before heading to our hosts’ house up on the hillside. We divided up gear and had our first class before a great dinner and our first real stargazing of the Southern Hemisphere sky.
Team Huemul checks out the shores of Lago Paloma. They spent the next few days surveying the cliffs high above the lake, looking for Huemul deer.
Latin America Program Director Matt Pomilia gives the introductory lecture in the Natural History of Patagonia class. Always better than a lecture hall.
A local rancher sat down with students to describe where he often finds the Huemul in his valley, kicking off a new study about community perceptions of Huemul conservation and participant mapping their range outside of protected areas.
The next morning we met up with local guardaparques Mario, Francisco (Pancho), and Pablo who led us into the Cerro Castillo Reserve. After a short hike in we arrived at our home for the next few days: a beautiful flat grassland in the valley between a cliff and mountain, stretching away into huge snowy mountain peaks in the distance. We spent the evening getting to know our guardaparque friends before eating dinner and heading to bed when it got too chilly.
The sun sets on our first day of field work, a moment our students celebrated climbing the cliffs above our camp and realizing that they were really in Patagonia.
The next morning we got an early start and hiked across the pampa wetlands and through the lenga forest until we reached el mirador, where we were able to get an awesome lookout over more of the valley and the next lake, Lago Azul, with a huge rainbow over it, as well as our first glimpse of the huemul deer! We split into two groups and surveyed different sections of the reserve by breaking off into pairs and walking a transect line through the forest, marking GPS waypoints of huemul tracks and scat. One of the groups saw 3 more huemules, while the other saw lots of scat and some incredible views from the top of a mountain.
Hiking through a lenga (Nothofagus pomilia) forest, the team heads towards a lookout point above Lago Paloma.
View of Lago Paloma from the mirador.
The next day started with some bird surveys in a short snow flurry, followed by more huemul surveys and some serious note-taking for our Grinnell journals. No huemul for either group, but lots of bird-sitings along with lots of culpeo fox and puma scat, and tons of cool plants like old man’s beard lichen and chaura de la montaña berries. When we got back from surveying the guardaparques told us the temperature was going to drop that evening and very graciously offered to host us in their cabins on the other side of the park. We packed up, hiked out, and were treated to a delicious home cooked meal by the guardaparques followed by warm beds. The next day one group surveyed around Lago Montreal and saw two huemul, while the other used telemetry to track and locate a radio-collared huemul named Nelly, and found her along with 8 of her friends!! This was a huge success, as huemul are rarely seen in such large groups.
University of Vermont student Ben Comai listens for radio signaled beeps while CONAF Guardaparque Francisco Cardenas monitors signal strength in a day hike to find a radio-collared Huemul named “Nelly,” whom the Guardaparques hadn’t found in nearly a year since putting the collar on her.
With great shouts of joy, the Guardaparques confirmed our group found “Nelly,” spying her radio collar through binoculars and getting visual confirmation with drone photography. Hard to discern amongst the rocky terrain, “Nelly” is the Huemul in the bottom right of the photo, with four juvenile Huemul up the hill above her in a total party of nine Huemul.
These two males followed “Nelly” up Cerro Bandera, rounding out Nelly’s party of nine Huemuls in her group after the very successful telemetry patrol and drone photography.
The morning of our final day with the guardaparques was spent tracking another collared huemul named Lento, with great success, as we got very close to him and 3 others.
CONAF Guardaparque Mario Alegría teaches the group about Huemul physiology, life history, and conservation status after several days in the field looking for Chile’s elusive, iconic deer.
Pitzer College student Naomi Fein spots a family of Huemul.
In the evening the guardaparques slaughtered a goat and had a delicious asado for us, filled with lots of laughter and dancing. The next morning we said our bittersweet goodbyes to the guardaparques and drove the truck down the Carretarra Austral to Round River’s field house in Cochrane, stopping along the way to see some ancient cave paintings and get an incredible view of the confluence of the glacier-blue Baker and Neff Rivers. We are now enjoying a brief relaxing time at basecamp with Team Guanaco before we begin the hectic process of gathering all the supplies we’ll need for our next adventure down to Tortel and Puerto Edén, starting on Wednesday.
The Huemul “Lento” rests in the grasses as Carleton College student Kadin Woolever carefully observes.
“Lento” rests at ease in the shade of ñirre (Nothofagus antartica) trees. He is the easiest to find among the collared Huemul in the Cerro Castillo National Reserve, and earned his name, which means “slow one,” for his tame disposition and lazy days spent in the shade.
Top photo: CONAF Guardafauna Nicolas Fernandez teaches Middlebury College student Alex Wells how to use radio telemetry to track a Huemul named “Lento” in the Cerro Castillo National Reserve.