by Chloe Kirk, of University of Vermont

Patagonia Student Program – Fall 2019 Semester

Leading up to our first expedition of the semester, we set to work by inventorying gear, planning meals, and making almost daily trips to town. We first made our way to Predio Militar to collect footage from camera traps set by a Round River alum, perform a point count survey of bird species, and see Chilean flamingos for the first time. After 3 days, we made our way back west into the Chacabuco valley to meet Team Nirre at Alto Valle, a campground within Patagonia National Park, where we will live for 9 days for field work and data collection. 

At our base camp in Cochrane a week prior, we were each assigned to final project groups. On each expedition, the field work we’re doing, the data we’re collecting, and the landscapes we’re exploring all contributes itself to a research project a small group dedicate themselves to over the course of the semester. Sophia, Mikkel, and I will be working together for a research project on the Guanaco within the valley. Guanaco are fascinating creatures; a free roaming South American camelid, ancestors to the llama, and known to have a sharp bite, the guanaco live in groups ranging from an alpha male, females, and their children, to younger males of bachelors, to the singular solitary male. Looking back only a few days into the semester, as we drove into Cochrane for the first time, our instructors expertly navigating the winding gravel road, the cars slowed to a crawl as we all peered out of the windows to see guanacos! Our first mammal of Chile (not including the many, many dogs of Coyhaique) welcoming us with open arms into Patagonia.

As we now find ourselves, weeks have past since that day. As we drive into the Chacabuco, guanacos are seen in every direction we look, our binoculars at the ready as we brace ourselves for the next 3 days of guanaco transects. Arriving to Alto Valle, we shuffle our bags down the long and winding road to our campgrounds where we find team Nirre hanging out around their tents. We drop our bags and rejoice in our new surroundings: a 3-walled shelter for class, cooking, eating, studying, and playing cards built nestled between enormous mountains in every direction you look. Our surroundings become more familiar as we study the plants, birds, mammals, fungi, and insects found in this habitat, the Patagonian steppe. Learning about a place, in that place, and by that place allows connections to form deeper within ourselves; this is a once in a lifetime experience.

Each morning, teams of 2 and 3 depart from Alto Valle for a day of field work. Throughout the valley, we survey the guanaco population by following transects, either directly north or south, that end when the valley does. Following our route over hilly cliffs and through marshy grasslands called mallins, we document our observations down to the specifics, all to be compiled together over the course of the next 3 days. My first transect took me up and over, through the valley to the Rio Chacabuco, where I enjoyed a well deserved lunch after observing over 150 guanaco over the course of 2 hours. Other groups, unfortunately, were not so lucky; some spent their entire day without seeing a single guanaco! I soon found myself hunched over the computer, post dinner entering cells upon cells of data into our project’s excel sheet, appreciative of the groups with fewer sightings, as data collection is a lengthy task.

Over the next two days, we completed more transects and entered more data. On our last day, my transect was by car. Just two semesters ago, all the guanaco transects were by car. Adding in walking transects through the valley where there were no roads hoped to account for more guanaco than previous semesters. We mainly completed walking transects, but there were a few long distance transects that could only be covered by car, mine being a 25km transect ending right by the Argentine border. It is plenty exciting to be in Chile, but spending the day counting guanaco all the way to Argentina was the cherry on top. We stopped for lunch at the same lake we had done our bird survey, seeing more flamingos than before and enjoying the warmth of the sun through the strong gusty wind.After our transects had ended, we continued to compile data, checking for errors, and collecting what was missing. We were also able to see the data from the year prior, comparing route notes and lengths, hoping to update the information to its most accurate. After returning to Cochrane, we continued with classes, readings, and work, now armed with the necessary information to continue our project while we head into new expeditions, collecting data and completing surveys that will soon be used in the research projects of our peers. Excited as our semester continues, we have a great amount to look forward to!