Disoriented Penguin Reaches Peru's Shore

Sunday May 13, 2007 2:31 AM

LIMA, Peru (AP) - A "disoriented'' Magellanic penguin swam ashore on Peru's coast, some 3,100 miles north of his home in the frigid waters of southern Chile.

The penguin got lost while looking for food, Peru's National Resource Institute was quoted as saying in El Comercio newspaper Saturday.

"It seems he was disoriented and got lost in the sea due to the different ocean currents,'' said Wilder Canales, who heads the National Paracas Reserve in southern Peru. "In his endless search for food, he casually climbed up on our shores, something that has never happened before.''

Television images showed scientists at the nature reserve treating an injury to the penguin's right wing that was apparently caused by a fishing net.

Peruvian authorities are trying to coordinate with their Chilean counterparts to return the penguin to its home waters.

LSU Researcher Discovers New Bird During Expedition To Peru

Source: Louisiana State University
Date: July 13, 2004

Published by Science Daily
Science Daily — He saw it. He heard it. But he needed proof.


For almost four years, LSU research associate Daniel Lane was haunted by the memory of an unusual, yellowish bird. He and an associate caught a glimpse of itwhile bird watching in Peru. They even recorded some of its song. Right away, they knew it was something new. Something different.

Now, thanks to Lane, a specimen of that bird previously unknown to science rests in a Lima museum and it will soon bear a name of Lane's choosing. As the discoverer of what could be a new species or, perhaps, a new genus, Lane will also be the first to author a scientific description of the bird.

The process will take some time, but, for someone who says his interest in birds began when he was "three or four," it's all a labor of love.

Lane, a New Jersey native who earned his master's from LSU in 1999, says his quest for the mystery bird dates back to 2000. As a part-time international bird-watching tour guide for WINGS Tours, Lane was one of the leaders of a group near the Manu National Park in Peru. He and fellow guide Gary Rosenberg, also an LSU graduate, spotted the bird along one of the park's major roads. Unfortunately, almost as soon as it was there, it was gone and no one else in the group had seen it.

The bird remained in Lane's mind as he returned to lead tours in the area for the next few years, but it didn't reappear.

"After three years, I was starting to doubt my sanity," said Lane.
Then, last year, the pair finally saw it again, and this time, the rest of the group saw it as well. They were also able to make a lengthy recording of its song, a critical part of ornithological study. Nevertheless, they were unable to obtain a specimen and, therefore, remained reticent about announcing their find.

Determined to obtain the proof he needed of his find, Lane returned to the region last November and played the recording of the bird's song. His attempt to attract his quarry failed and he once again went home empty-handed. Then, last month, Lane and some cohorts were in Peru conducting other field work when they made spur-of-the-moment plans to give it one more try.

After obtaining permission from the proper authorities, Lane and his group set off on their mission. On the morning of June 9, the playing of the taped song worked and the bird appeared, coming to rest in some nearby bamboo, just off the road. After observing and playing "cat and mouse" with the bird for almost an hour, Lane finally got his specimen.

Lane explained that the bird is likely a tanager, a type of songbird found mostly in tropical regions of the Americas. He describes it as having a short, bushy crest and olive back, wings and tail that contrast with a burnt orange crown. For now, the specimen is in the keeping of the National Museum in Lima where it will become the "type," the specimen on which the species' description is based and against which all others will be compared. Eventually, it will be sent to Lane so that he can write the scientific description and record his observations and its DNA will be tested to determine its specific relationship to other birds.

However long it takes, Lane is understanding of the pace of science. He's been in a similar situation before. In 1996, while on another expedition in Peru, he discovered the Scarlet-banded Barbet, a small, colorful toucan-like bird. And besides, he says, it feels good to know that he was sane after all.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Louisiana State University.

Where Is The World's Greatest Biodiversity? Smithsonian Scientists Find The Answer Is A Question Of Scale

Source: Smithsonian Institution
Date: January 25, 2002
Published by Science Daily


Science Daily — Amazonia represents the quintessence of biodiversity the richest ecosystem on earth. Yet a study by Smithsonian scientists, published this week in the journal Science, shows that differences in species composition of tropical forests are greater over distance in Panama than in Amazonia. The finding also challenges recent models proposed to explain forest species composition.

The research team, led by Richard Condit of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute's Center for Tropical Forest Science, compared data from single-hectare (2.47 acre) tropical forest plots near the Panama Canal with plots of the same size in the Yasuni National Park of Ecuador and in Peru's Manu Biosphere Reserve. After identifying, tagging and measuring more than 50,000 individual trees with stems of ten centimeters or more in diameter in all three forests, they observed that a wide swath of the western Amazon has a forest in which the species change very little over distances of more than 1000 kilometers. The tree species counts in any one locale are high, but each locale turns out to be much like the others in terms of species composition.

In contrast, forests on the Isthmus of Panama change dramatically in tree species composition from one site to the next. Forests just 50 kilometers apart in Panama are less alike than forests 1,400 kilometers apart in the western Amazon. As a result of such high landscape variation, parts of Panama have as many or even more tree species than parts of Amazonia. "Ecologists have a technical term for landscape variation in forest types: beta-diversity," Condit explained. "Beta-diversity is high when forests change a lot over short distances as in Panama but low when forests are similar over long distances as in Ecuador and Peru." The unique aspect of this research by the Smithsonian team, including colleagues from France, the United States and South America, was a precise mathematical prediction of beta-diversity that helped them pinpoint its cause. A theory for beta-diversity had heretofore eluded ecologists.

"The Smithsonian theory is based on a basic ecological premise called the 'neutral theory,'" Condit said, "but adds to it the simple yet crucial observation that trees do not generally spread their seeds very far a factor which tends to enhance beta-diversity."

The Science report provides one of the most precise tests of the neutral theory yet published.

The team concludes that the neutral theory cannot account for beta-diversity in tropical forests, and they discount the importance of random events in establishing what grows there. Instead, Panama's high beta-diversity must be due to the abrupt variation in rainfall across the Central American isthmus, from the ever-wet Caribbean shoreline to the dry Pacific slope.
Forests across western Amazonia, however, were more uniform in species composition than the theory allowed, a surprising result.

"Explanations for this uniformity will require deeper understanding of how different tropical trees are from one another," said co-author and Smithsonian scientist Egbert G. Leigh, Jr., who devised the mathematical formula that led to the undermining of the neutral theory.
"More tedious field work, it seems, is in store," Leigh concluded.

###

The Center for Tropical Forest Science, established within the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in 1990, is a consortium of forestry agencies, universities, research institutes and nongovernmental organizations around the world, each managing or involved in one or more of 17 forest dynamics plots in 14 different countries. In addition to monitoring the trees, the center sponsors training programs, scientific meetings, and communications between sites through a newsletter and Web site at http://www.ctfs.si.edu/.

The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, headquartered in Panama City, Republic of Panama, is one of the world's leading centers for basic research on the ecology, behavior and evolution of tropical organisms. More information is available at http://www.stri.org/.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Smithsonian Institution.

Deep in the Jungle

Published by TRIBUNE-REVIEW

By Bill Zlatos
Sunday, April 22, 2007

Boating on the Manu River in southwestern Peru, I brace a lunch of pork and spaghetti against a strong gust. Suddenly, my guide gives me an incredible birthday gift.
He peers through his binoculars and points to the left bank more than 200 feet away.

"Jaguar!" he yells.

For many wildlife lovers, Peru's Manu Biosphere in the Amazon River Basin offers a diversity of plant and animal life one can only expect to see on cable TV nature shows. Roughly the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island, the area consists of the Manu National Park and the Manu Reserved Zone, which tourists, led by guides, may visit.

The region is home to 10 percent of the world's birds -- about 1,000 species -- and 10 percent of its plant life. It has 13 species of monkeys. Among the 13 species designated as "threatened" are ocelots and black caimans -- a kind of crocodile. And, of course, my jaguar.

The weeklong trip offers the chance to go deeper into the more isolated areas of the park and see much of it.

Take a bus to Manu and a plane back to Cusco. It costs more, but shaves a day of travel off the trip. And tourists get a spectacular aerial view of the jungle canopy and more time to explore quaint Cusco, the ancient Incan capital of Peru.

I join 10 other tourists from around the world on our bus, which leaves Cusco, follows the Urubamba River across the Sacred Valley and climbs a dirt road into the Andes.

After crossing a 13,000-foot pass, we stop to observe the chullpas, pre-Incan graves. About 5 feet high, these circular stone tombs once held the mummies of the royal family buried in fetal positions. The gold and silver treasure stashed with them has long since been plundered.

An obelisk marks the entrance to misty Manu at Acjanacu. We descend into the dwarf forest, the cloud forest and then to our lodge in the lowland rain forest. The lodges on this trip are spartan by American standards -- screened cabins with little more than twin cots for furniture and separate kitchen, shower and toilet facilities. At least it discourages more tourists from coming.

Wildlife abounds

We rise at 5 a.m. the next day and hike to a camouflaged blind to observe the Andean cock-of-the-rocks. The male birds preen in their reddish orange plumage with black tails and red crests to attract the females. The males woo the ladies in their guttural voices. After breakfast, most of the group rides mountain bikes for two hours. David, an architect from Switzerland, and I opt for a nature hike. We see brilliantly colored butterflies, eagles, a swallowtail kite, white-collared swifts, tree ferns, and a wasp nest hanging in the bamboo.

That afternoon, we launch two rafts on the Alta Madre de Dios River. Water from the Class I and II rapids splashes over the bow. With the guide's permission, I jump in to cool off. Most of my companions follow suit. We might as well swim now before we reach the Manu River and its crocodiles, piranhas, electric eels and snakes.

We observe animals during hikes in the jungle, from towers or from a 25-foot-long motorized boat with a bright blue canopy. Our pilot expertly guides the boat through a maze of logs lodged in the river. Sometimes, turtles, herons, egrets and other birds perch on the limbs.

Close encounters

On our third day, we awaken at 5 a.m. and boat 15 minutes on the Alta Madre de Dios River to a rocky island 300 feet from shore. We sit on inch-thick mattresses and face a clearing on the bank. Birds soon flock in the trees above a 50-foot-high clay lick. Parrots and parakeet first swoop down, then macaws.

They peck at the clay for minerals that counteract the toxins in the unripe fruit they eat. As if at a deli, the colorful birds patiently await their turn.

Later that morning, the boat pulls ashore where a stream joins the main river. We climb 75 feet, and I plop into a pool fed by a hot spring. The water is 105 degrees, but I soon get used to it.

On my descent, however, I hear a shriek. Heidi Coyle, a tourist from St. John's in the Virgin Islands, is standing in the stream and trying to balance herself on a rock when she notices a snake a foot away. Our guide identifies it as a poisonous coral snake.

"I was very scared," she said later. "I was looking around because where there's one, there's more."

The 3-foot snake eventually swims away, ending our snake encounters for the rest of the trip.

We ride the boat for five hours. Egrets, herons and cormorants stand on rocky islands, the banks or in river shallows. Vultures soar overhead or flock ominously in trees. Flood-tossed trees stripped of bark and blanched by lichen clog the river or are strewn ashore. And wild cane flourishes on the banks like the dandelions in my backyard.

Suddenly, we spot a dead white caiman, upside down and lodged in the branches of a tree stuck in the Manu River. Three vultures perch atop the 10-foot-long body until we pull alongside it.

Treetop view

Back in camp, I go into the jungle on a canopy tour. We climb a series of five towers linked by inch-thick cables. The purpose ostensibly is to observe wildlife from the treetops. But we see no critters as we zoom as far as 300 feet among the ivy like modern-day Tarzans and Janes. I even practice my Tarzan yell.

Most of our success in spotting wildlife is because of the skill of our guides, Alvaro Zamora and Abdel Martinez. They are adept at following the tracks or slightest movements of animals and pointing them out to us.

We stalk a wild pig, rustling and grunting down the trail. For a fleeting moment, I make out its silhouette. We see a poison frog, used by Indians for arrows and darts, inside the hollow of a tree. Of more concern are the inch-long giant ants, whose bites scare even the natives. The giant ant nests and those of termites and wasps hang on trees throughout the jungle.

The jungle is not as hot as I expect but noisier. The air is filled with the chirping of the cicada, the howling of monkeys and the squawking of parrots and macaws.

During our hikes, light filters through the dense foliage, casting mottled shadows on a jungle floor of matted leaves. We enjoy watching the spider, squirrel and brown capuchin monkeys swinging from tree to tree, sometimes baby in tow.

On one occasion, we observe some spider monkeys high in the fig and sava trees. Disapproving our presence, the monkeys shower us with leaves and limbs. We do not budge. Then they defecate on us, scoring a direct hit on a tourist. That gets us moving.

One of my favorite Amazon Basin animals is the giant river otter. We visit them by flatboat on Salvador Lake, an oxbow lake and the biggest one in Manu. Oxbow lakes are formed by a change in the course of a river.

We eventually spot a family of six otters, each about four and half feet long, as entertaining as circus clowns. They play or fight with each other, then dive into the lake and surface, clutching and crunching fish, bones and all. They are absolutely mesmerizing.

In addition to the animals, the guides point out a wide variety of plant life. We see walking palms, trees whose roots move toward sunlight. I am amazed at a giant fig tree. It stands on a root system of tentacles 25 feet tall and spreading out 100 feet in diameter.

The leche leche tree grows about 130 feet high, and its flared trunk stretches 10 feet across. On another hike, the guide stops to show us a cocoa tree, the source of chocolate. I kiss it.

Tribal lodge

Tourists are few in Manu, but we visit a lodge of eight thatched huts of the Matchiguenga, the biggest Indian tribe in this region. I am told there are three kinds of Indians in Peru: those who have assimilated the white man's ways; those who have some contact with whites, but still follow the traditional way of life; and "the naked people," who live isolated in the jungle.

The leader of this lodge, Carlos, is of the second type. He demonstrates his skill with the bow and arrow, and we tourists take turns with the bow and later play soccer with our hosts.

At the lodge, I buy two necklaces made of seeds, the tusk of a wild pig and the skull of a pacu, a fish related to the piranha, for my son and nephew. I also buy them handmade bows and arrows with feathers from a variety of birds.

Imagine my sweet talking to get bows and arrows through four airports on the way home.

After a week in the jungle, most of my group returns by boat down the Manu River to a grassy airstrip guarded by ducks. On the way there, my eyes glaze over by the abundance of wildlife I've seen and, imagining there's little new to see, I leave my camera in my pack rather than around my neck. All the better to steady my lunch against the breeze blowing into our faces.

It is about 1:30 p.m. when Abdel spots the jaguar. He stands -- fortunately for us -- in a clearing on the river bank where he probably had just quenched his thirst. His sleek tawny body, about six feet long, ripples with muscles.

In just a matter of seconds, the cat lumbers back to the jungle -- indifferent to and undaunted by us. The brush and wild cane soon blend into the natural camouflage of his fur as we fumble for our cameras. David snaps the only photograph among us, but by now the jaguar's body blends into the jungle, making him virtually invisible.

It marks only the second jaguar Abdel has seen all year, and it happens on my birthday.

"Thank you, Peru," I say aloud.

Spectacular Courtship Display of Rare Hummingbird Filmed For First Time

Published in Surfbirds News

Washington DC, 5 April 2007. American Bird Conservancy (ABC) today released the first ever film of the spectacular courtship display of the Marvelous Spatuletail, a highly endangered hummingbird that lives in the mountains of northern Peru. The video was shot by wildlife filmmaker Greg Homel of Natural Elements Productions. To view a segment of this extremely rare footage, please click on the graphic.

The Marvelous Spatuletail is unique among hummingbirds in that it has only four tail feathers. The tail of the adult male is more than twice as long as its body and ends in two great spoon-shaped ‘spatules’ that radiate a metallic purplish gloss. The males compete for females by whirling their long tails around their bodies in an amazing courtship display, which had previously only been witnessed by a few ornithologists, and had never been filmed. This display is considered to be one of the most bizarre in the bird world - the males repeatedly attack each other in the air, contorting their bodies and tails into strange shapes at incredible speed.

“The Marvelous Spatuletail is the ultimate hummingbird for most birdwatchers because of its rarity, spectacular tail, and vibrant plumage,” said Mike Parr, Vice President of American Bird Conservancy. “It is also the focus of conservation efforts in an area that is rapidly becoming one of the birding hotspots in South America.”

ABC is working with its Peruvian partner group Asociación Ecosistemas Andinos (ECOAN) to protect the spatuletail, which is considered to be one of the world’s most endangered hummingbirds. The groups have set up a new protected area under a conservation easement, are developing a nature tourism program to benefit local communities, and conducting reforestation programs in the area.

“Conservation is not the role of single individuals but of our entire society. When you see communities that understand such challenges and sign such commitments as this conservation easement, you see progress and feel there is hope,” said Constantino Aucca Chutas, President of ECOAN.To support the conservation of the spatuletail, visit https://www.abcbirds.org/membership/donate_spt.cfm

The Spatuletail is also becoming a flagship species for tourism in the area. It has been declared the “Regional Bird” for Peru’s Amazonas region, and is featured in the Commission for the Promotion of Peru’s tourism brochures and the Northern Peru Birding Route (www.perubirdingroutes.com).

Birdwatchers wishing to search for the spatuletail should contact Hugo Arnal at American Bird Conservancy, abc@abcbirds.org

Long Sought After Bird Spotted in Peruvian Nature Reserve

Published in Salem-News.com

Endangered species known only from captured individuals seen in wild for first time

(ALTO NIEVA, Peru) - The extremely rare Long-whiskered Owlet (Xenoglaux loweryi), a species that wasn’t discovered until 1976, and until now was only known from a few specimens captured in nets after dark, has been seen in the wild for the first time by researchers monitoring the Area de Conservación Privada de Abra Patricia – Alto Nieva, a private conservation area in Northern Peru.

The sighting is considered a holy grail of South American ornithology and has not been accomplished in thirty years, despite the efforts of hundreds of birders.

The species is among the world’s smallest owls. It is so distinct that it has been named in its own genus: Xenoglaux meaning “strange owl” on account of the long wispy feathers or whiskers that stream out from its wild-looking reddish-orange eyes. The owl inhabits the dense undergrowth of mountain forests in a remote part of northern Peru.

“Seeing the Long-whiskered Owlet is a huge thrill,” said David Geale of Asociación Ecosistemas Andinos (ECOAN) who was part of the research team. “Its population is estimated to be less than 1,000 birds, and possibly as few as 250. Due to the rapid destruction of its forest habitat and its tiny range, it is inferred that the species is in serious decline. Until recently, the owlet’s key habitat was completely unprotected.”

The Long-whiskered Owlet has previously been captured by researchers on at least three occasions, but until 2002 nothing was known of the bird’s natural history. At that point, calls were recorded from a captive bird, but its biology still remained virtually unknown. Last month, researchers Geale and Juvenal Ccahuana, rangers of Abra Patricia and monitors of the MNBCA program from Alto Mayo, encountered the owlet three times during daylight hours and recorded its calls frequently at night. Several photographs were also taken of a bird captured in a mist-net and later released onto a tree branch where it posed for photographs before disappearing into the night. These additional photos are available at http://www.abcbirds.org/whiskeredowlpic.htm and high resolution copies are available upon request.

“The creation of the Area de Conservación Privada de Abra Patricia – Alto Nieva, located in the Northern end of the Peruvian Yungas ecosystem, provides protection for the key site for the Long-whiskered Owlet,” said Hugo Arnal, American Bird Conservancy’s (ABC) Tropical Andes Program Director. “By establishing a reserve and protecting the owlet’s forest habitat, ABC and its partner ECOAN are giving many other species a chance to survive as well.”

The northeastern section of the Peruvian Yungas, comprises habitat for 317 resident bird species, of which 23 are considered globally threatened. The conservation area also protects much of the known habitat for the endangered Ochre-fronted Antpitta, and has been declared a priority by the Alliance for Zero Extinction. Other endemics in the area include the endangered Royal Sunangel (a hummingbird), the rare and recently-described Johnson’s Tody-Tyrant, and the endangered Ash-throated Antwren.

Several songbirds that breed in North America such as the beautiful Blackburnian Warbler also use these forests during the winter. Other migratory species include the Broad-winged Hawk, Swainson’s Hawk, Swainson's Thrush, and Alder Flycatcher. In total, 29 neotropical migrant species use this area, of which 13 are of conservation concern. Nearly 98% of the reserve consists of well-preserved stands of typical Yungas forests, and it is also considered a rich area for orchids.

ABC’s work in the region is supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Conoco Phillips, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and Robert Wilson. Birdwatchers wishing to search for the owl should contact Hugo Arnal at American Bird Conservancy (see: http://www.abcbirds.org/ ). Access is strictly limited to small groups and the chances of success though better than in the past are still considered very low for anything but the luckiest groups.

American Bird Conservancy (ABC) is the only 501(c)(3) organization that works solely to conserve native wild birds and their habitats throughout the Americas. ABC is a membership organization that is consistently awarded a top, four-star rating by the independent group, Charity Navigator.

Peru: Amazon tribes demand creation of national parks

(LIP-jl) (La Republica) -- Authorities from the Organization for the Development of the Indigenous Communities from the High Comaina (ODECOAC in Spanish) and the Organization of Development for the Cenepa Border Communities (ODECOFROC in Spanish) are demanding the creation of two national parks in Peru's Amazonian region.

The representatives from both organizations expressed their intentions of maintaining the areas within the proposed national parks free from any type of contamination and industrial operations.

"Last September we publicly denounced the contamination of our rivers caused by gold mining operations conducted by the Afrodita mining company at the mouths of the Comaina and Sawientsa Rivers and by Ecuadorian citizens who cross over into Peruvian territory," commented one of the representatives.

According to representatives of the indigenous groups, they have always defended their territory, even battling alongside Peruvian soldiers in the Peru-Ecuador border conflict.

"Our people have given their lives to defend the Condor Mountain Range, a Awajun ancestral territory," sustained the organizations.

They reminded government officials that as a result of that conflict, the Peruvian government agreed to protected areas as part of the peace treaty.

According to the organizations, this is the reason they are asking authorities to protect roughly 152,000 hectares of land by giving them national park status.

The proposed names of the national parks are Ichigkat-Muja Condor Mountain Range National Park and Tunta Nain Communal Reserve.

Published On Line

The `Newest' Natural Wonder

The Locals Knew Of Peruvian Cascade; They Just Didn't Realize What They Had
March 4, 2007
By STEVE HENDRIX, Washington Post

Here I am in remotest northern Peru, hard on the trail of the world's third-largest anticlimax.

This is a story of waterfalls and expectations, and you can count me a waterfall skeptic. I know they are picturesque. I know they are soothing, in that stock greeting-card way of rainbows and unicorns. I know they figure largely in the pre-flight videos they show on planes to take the edge off your airport rage.

But actual waterfalls? They're seldom worth the walk. Somebody always insists on taking the 2-mile side trail to see the local waterfall. So you go. And there's a waterfall, dribbling (picturesquely) down the rocks. And then you hike back.

In my experience, waterfall equals anticlimax.

But the press release that crossed my desk last spring was darned near irresistible: "World's Third Highest Waterfall Discovered in Peru."

Howzat? Discovered? The Age of Discovery was ages ago. The biggest things they discover these days are new species of beetle and, every now and then, a forgotten cable network. But the major landforms were all mapped long ago. A 250-story waterfall that instantly climbs up on the podium with Venezuela's Angel Falls and South Africa's Tugela Falls? How did that avoid the eye of satellite cartographers?

Who cares? If it was that big and that remote, I just wanted to get there before they bulldozed a road, built the hotels and generally tarted up the place.

And so in September, I set off on the most harrowing waterfall side trip of all: an overnight flight from Washington to Lima, a dawn hop to the northern coastal city of Chiclayo and a 12-hour drive over dicey mountain roads to Peru's impossibly secluded upper Amazon basin. This high, dry tropical Shangri-La was the domain of the Chachapoyas, a mysterious Andean race that predated the Incas. The new waterfall, dubbed Gocta, after an ancient Chachapoyan village, is deep in one of the many blind valleys they inhabited between 800 and 1400 A.D. You can still see their carved tombs, some with intact mummies, in the surrounding cliff walls.

According to the press release, the government of Peru promised safe tourist access and basic accommodations, hopefully starting in 2007 (don't count on it). In the meantime, getting to Gocta requires bone-jarring days on terrifying roads and hours on steep and dubious valley trails. All to see a waterfall.

This had better be good.

It Was There All Along

So how do you discover a waterfall? The local people knew about it, of course. It just wasn't a big deal to them.

Luis Chuquimes is an elder in the tiny village of San Pablo, a few hours' hike from the falls. Tourists were unknown in San Pablo before word spread about Gocta last spring. Now Chuquimes' little cantina serves as an unofficial visitors center. According to the wrinkled sign-in book on his bar, more than 70 people had made the trip by the time I got there at the end of the dry season. On the other side of the valley, another village has logged just over 1,000 Gocta tourists. It's mostly Peruvians so far, eager to see the new national icon. A couple of Israelis and Germans had come . No Americans had signed in yet.

"We knew it was there," Chuquimes said as he delivered bottles of beer and Inca Kola to a group of Gocta-bound students from Chiclayo, a day's drive away. "But we didn't know it was one of the tallest in the world."

It took a German engineer named Stefan Ziemendorff, working on a nearby water project, to realize that the nameless falls might boast world-class specs. He got the Peruvian government to survey it, checked his National Geographic stats and called a press conference. Gocta came in at 2,532 feet, which put it, by Ziemendorff's reckoning, at No. 3 in the world.

Or not. It turns out that waterfall ranking is, well, rancorous. Waterfall people - who are a lot like train people and lighthouse people - are burning up the discussion boards, debating Gocta's place on the charts with fierce references to seasonal flow, degree of slope and something called "freeleap." (Partisans of certain Norwegian cascades have bordered on rude.)

All of which makes Peru's bold claim such a brilliant stroke of marketing. Whether or not Gocta deserves the bronze, "third highest" gives it instant Seven Wonders cred. That ensures tourist interest in a spectacular but little-known region that really does have a lot to offer anyone lured in.

"I don't know if it's the third-highest waterfall on Earth, but I know it's a very high waterfall," said Peter Lerche, a German anthropologist who has lived here since 1980. "It gives us a diversity of attractions. We have rivers, lakes, archaeology and now this waterfall."

The Chachapoyas area of northern Peru already attracts two kinds of tourists: birders and a trickle of hard-core archaeology buffs, those who have already seen (or been turned off by) the hugely popular Machu Picchu (so commercial in places, you might call it Inca Inc.). That was my toehold in the region. I found a guide company willing to take me to the waterfall and show me around the archaeological highlights during a six-day flying visit. They paired me with another tourist, a California antiques dealer, who was fishing around for a Gocta visit. A photographer from Lima made it a threesome.

A Museum Of Mummies .......> more information

Scientists discover new species of distinctive cloud-forest rodent

Published On Line - Physorg
Source: Field Museum

A strikingly unusual animal was recently discovered in the cloud-forests of Peru. The large rodent is about the size of a squirrel and looks a bit like one, except its closest relatives are spiny rats.

The nocturnal, climbing rodent is beautiful yet strange looking, with long dense fur, a broad blocky head, and thickly furred tail. A blackish crest of fur on the crown, nape and shoulders add to its distinctive appearance.

Isothrix barbarabrownae, as the new species has been named, is described in the current issue of Mastozoología Neotropical (Neotropical mammalogy), the principal mammalogy journal of South America. A color illustration of the bushy rodent graces the cover of the journal.

The authors of the study found the rodent in 1999 while conducting field research in Peru's Manu National Park and Biosphere Reserve Mountains in Southern Peru along the eastern slope of the Andes. Extending from lowland tropical forests in the Amazon Basin to open grasslands above the Andean tree line, Manu is home to more species of mammals and birds than any equivalently sized area in the world.

"Like other tropical mountain ranges, such as the Himalayas, Ruwenzoris, Virungas and Kinabalu, the Andes support a fantastic variety of habitats," said Bruce Patterson, MacArthur Curator of Mammals at The Field Museum. "These in turn support some of the richest faunas on the planet."

The nocturnal, climbing rodent is beautiful yet strange looking, with long dense fur, a broad blocky head, and thickly furred tail. A blackish crest of fur on the crown, nape and shoulders add to its distinctive appearance.

Isothrix barbarabrownae, as the new species has been named, is described in the current issue of Mastozoología Neotropical (Neotropical mammalogy), the principal mammalogy journal of South America. A color illustration of the bushy rodent graces the cover of the journal.

The authors of the study found the rodent in 1999 while conducting field research in Peru's Manu National Park and Biosphere Reserve Mountains in Southern Peru along the eastern slope of the Andes. Extending from lowland tropical forests in the Amazon Basin to open grasslands above the Andean tree line, Manu is home to more species of mammals and birds than any equivalently sized area in the world.

"Like other tropical mountain ranges, such as the Himalayas, Ruwenzoris, Virungas and Kinabalu, the Andes support a fantastic variety of habitats," said Bruce Patterson, MacArthur Curator of Mammals at The Field Museum. "These in turn support some of the richest faunas on the planet."

"The new species is not only a handsome novelty," Patterson said. "Preliminary DNA analyses suggest that its nearest relatives, all restricted to the lowlands, may have arisen from Andean ancestors. The newly discovered species casts a striking new light on the evolution of an entire group of arboreal rodents."

Article On Line

Birdwatching & Documenting a region's species

Reitz graduate finds adventure of lifetime doing research in Andes
Published On Line - CourierPress
Photography by JILL JANKOWSKI
Story by SHARON SORENSON
Sunday, January 28, 2007

Imagine nearly five months in the jungle. No television, cell phone, newspaper, e-mail, electricity or running water. With a few dedicated assistants, Jill Jankowski lives in a tent; eats rice, pasta and dried soup; treats brown river water for drinking; and stays alert for poisonous snakes, disease-transmitting mosquitoes and stinging ants. Even after a bout with a serious parasitic infection, she's going back.

Jankowski, a 1998 Reitz graduate and a graduate of Purdue University, abandoned her 4.0 grade-point average earned studying chemical engineering, as well as a starting position on Purdue's soccer team. She chose instead to study birds.

Now earning a doctorate from the University of Florida, she's studying the diversity of birds in Peru's 3.75 million-acre Manu reserve.

Supported by her research team, she trudges from the Amazon foothills (elevation 2,550 feet) to the Andes Mountains tree line (elevation: 11,000 feet) to learn why, in a day's stroll up or down the slope, one can cross the ranges of hundreds of bird species.

"You can find as many bird species on this single Andean slope as in the U.S. and Canada combined - about 1,150 species," Jankowski said.

Tropical forests, Jankowski said, are "spectacular places that we know next to nothing about."
"They have the most amazing and quirky animals on the planet. But in many cases, tropical forests are destroyed before anyone can document the life within."

Jankowski feels an urgency about her work, in part, she said, because "in later years, this project will gauge effects of climate change."

More information .....>

Links recomended:

• Birding Tours in Peru
• Bird Wathchin Regions in Peru

Peru Bird-Watching Takes Flight With 1,800 Species

John Roachfor National Geographic News
November 22, 2004

Eco-lodges are sprouting under the forest canopy, guidebooks are rolling off the presses, and Peruvians are eager to showcase their country as a bird-watcher's paradise.

That is the message trilled by John O'Neill, an ornithologist at Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge, who has visited the country to study birds almost every year since 1961.

"It's a country that still has major areas totally unknown biologically," he said. "There have been more than 50 species of bird discovered and described in the last 50 years. I've had the good fortune of being involved with 13."
Peru is home to more than 1,800 bird species, 120 of which are found nowhere else in the world. At least five new species have also been discovered as of this year and are still waiting official scientific description.

The diversity of bird species in Peru, O'Neill said, stems from its ecological and geographical diversity. On the coast, the Pacific Ocean laps at parched desert. Inland, dry forest and scrubland rise to the snowcapped Andes. Toward the east, cloud forests spill into the Amazon Basin.
"It really is packed with landscapes and habitats," said Thomas Valqui, a Lima-based ornithologist and graduate student at LSU. "In five hours you can go from a dry desert through snow at 5,000 meters [16,400 feet] elevation to the rain forest."

Thomas Schulenberg is a conservation ecologist at the Field Museum in Chicago and an expert on Peruvian birds. He said South America is the "bird continent," thanks to bird species that are more diverse and abundant than those in tropical Asia or Africa.

That, in turn, makes Peru a hot spot, Schulenberg said. "Peru has dazzling geographic diversity, which equates to habitat diversity, which translates to more bird species."

Birders' Delights

Barry Walker is the owner of Cuzco-based Manu Expeditions and a recognized expert on birding in Peru. He said the opportunity to discover bird species new to science is attractive to a handful of people, but most come simply to marvel at the diversity of species.
"Large numbers [of birds], plus some large spectacular attractions, are the prime reason for a visit," he said.

more information .....>

Cloud Forests Fading in the Mist, Their Treasures Little Known

John Roachfor National Geographic News
August 13, 2001


They are nature's "water towers," providing billions of gallons of fresh, clean, filtered water. They are home to thousands of indigenous peoples, and storehouses of biodiversity, at least 80 percent of which has not yet been catalogued.
Yet in as little as ten years' time, biologists warn, the world's cloud forests—evergreen mountain forests that are almost permanently shrouded in mist and clouds—may be all but gone.

They are being cleared for cattle grazing and coca plantations. Logged to provide fuel for heating and cooking. Paved over and developed to make way for transportation and telecommunications networks. They are being damaged and dried out by air pollutants and global warming.
Now, cloud forests are rising to the top of the world's scientific and conservation agenda. But will scientists learn enough about these important ecosystems to be able to convince the world to conserve them before they are gone forever?

Percy Nuñez, a research biologist in Cuzco, Peru, who studies cloud forests, estimates they are disappearing at a such a rate that the "the cloud forest will all be gone in the next ten years."
"We don't know about our resources—80 to 90 percent of the cloud forests are a mystery to us all," Nuñez said.
Yet scientists have barely begun assessing the wide range of species that clod forests harbor, he noted. "We don't have biologists working in cloud forests. We are not training young scientists to do the work," he said.
Now, he added, "we are working with NASA, using satellite images to get some idea of what's there before it is gone. There aren't any field guides available."

More information ......>

Gocta waterfall

The 14 tallest waterfall is located in Chachapoyas in the Northern part of Peru.

This waterfall has been known by locals for decades, but only recently has its existence emerged as common knowledge. (See map)

The German Stefan Ziemendorff is thought to be responsible for bringing the falls to the attention of the Peruvian government in 2002, he was working in Peru for a water project and he realized from far in a expedition that something was there since then he participated in documenting, constructing a trail to and measuring the falls. The falls appear to exhibit a modest to high volume of flow, becoming an immensely powerful cataract when its stream is full. According the list of waterfalls released by a Waterfall database, Gocta is the 14 tallest waterfall in the world. Some weeks ago Gocta was announced as the third tallest but this is wrong.

To reach this waterfall the only way is walking 5 hrs by virgin jungle departing from the village of Cocachimba, through the trek its possible to see another amazing waterfalls, toucans, hummingbirds, monkeys and much more. Although there are some explorer or adventure lovers visiting Gocta but there is not yet tourist circuits or paths at the moment.

Then a question appears, which is the third tallest waterfall? Its name is Las Tres Hermanas (The three sisters) and is also located in Cutiverini reserved zone in Ayacucho, Peru.

For those interested in visit Gocta, InkaNatura recommends spend extra days visiting the Chachapoyas archaeological jewels: Kuelap fortress, Karajia, Revash, Lake of the Condors, and the interesting Leymebamba Museum where visitors can admire more than 200 chachapoyas mummy found at the Lake of the Condors.

More information :
The tallest waterfalls
Kuelap
Chachapoyas tours

Manu, The most intense wildlife experience the Peruvian Amazon

There is no doubt that Manu is the superlative of biodiversity thanks to a great variety of habitats that includes Andean grasslands, elfin forest, cloud forest and jungle lowlands. Nature-lovers and wildlife enthusiasts can find more species of plants than any other part of the world. And when we talk about wildlife, we can count 13 species of monkeys (including the charm Emperor Tamarin), Giant armadillo, Giant anteater and endangered predators like the Jaguar, Giant Otter and the Black Caiman.

Recently, InkaNatura has designed new programs that include accommodations in its comfortable tented camps located inside the Manu National Park, close to the famous Lakes Salvador and Otorongo.


In order to offer a reliable and secure air service, InkaNatura is pleased to have made an agreement with Pisco Airlines to offer flights between Cusco and Boca Manu. We now guarantee departures, using a modern Cessna Gran Caravan (12 seats) with experienced and high quality trained pilots. This 2005 plane has the latest technology for safe air transportation. Some Manu tour operators recommend traveling through Puerto Maldonado, but they do not mention that clients will spend more than 11 hours sitting in uncomfortable fast boats/buses and, in addition, this route does not have clean and decent bathrooms.

More information:

• Manu Wildlife Center - Tours Programs
• Bio trip, from the Andes to the Amazon (All Manu area)
• Manu National Park with our exclusive Tented Camps
• Cock-of-the-Rock-Lodge - Tour Programs (Cloud Forest)
• Manu Map

More info about News in May 2006
http://www.inkanatura.com/news/2006/mayo/index.htm

Birdwatching in Peru

Peru is one of the top countries for birdwatchers and nature lovers. Here some important facts about birds in Peru.

Did you know that:

• Peru has the second highest number of bird species in the world? Counting only breeding species, Peru ranks first.
• More new species were described in Peru in the last 30 years than in any other country in the world, with about 1 new species on average.

You can find more information about our programs at:
http://www.inkanatura.com/birdingtours.asp

More info about News in Febreruary 2005
http://www.inkanatura.com/news/2005/February/index.htm