Punta Tombo is a peninsula into the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

south of

Trelew Trelew (, from cy, tref "town" and the name of the founder, Lewis Jones) is a city in the eastern part of the Chubut Province of Argentina. Located in Patagonia, the city is the largest and most populous in the low valley of the Chubut River, wi ...

Chubut Province Chubut ( es, Provincia del Chubut, ; cy, Talaith Chubut) is a province in southern Argentina, situated between the 42nd parallel south (the border with Río Negro Province), the 46th parallel south (bordering Santa Cruz Province), the Andes ra ...

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 second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

, where there is a large colony of

Magellanic penguin The Magellanic penguin (''Spheniscus magellanicus'') is a South American penguin, breeding in coastal Patagonia, including Argentina, Chile, and the Falkland Islands, with some migrating to Brazil and Uruguay, where they are occasionally seen as ...

s - the largest such colony in

. It is a short distance north of Camarones.

Natural reserve

The ''Punta Tombo Provincial Reserve'' has been protected since 1979, according to a provincial

decree A decree is a legal proclamation, usually issued by a head of state (such as the president of a republic or a monarch), according to certain procedures (usually established in a constitution). It has the force of law. The particular term used for ...

, and it is one of the main tourist attractions in Chubut. Punta Tombo is part of the new marine national park at

Golfo San Jorge The San Jorge Gulf (Golfo San Jorge; Spanish for ''Gulf of St. George'') is a bay in southern Patagonia, Argentina. It is an ocean basin opening to the Atlantic. Its shoreline spans Chubut and Santa Cruz province. The gulf measures approximatel ...

. The long, wide peninsula is covered with sand, clay and gravel. A variety of wildlife can be seen in the area, including a colony of Magellanic penguins, other seabirds (mainly

gull Gulls, or colloquially seagulls, are seabirds of the family Laridae in the suborder Lari. They are most closely related to the terns and skimmers and only distantly related to auks, and even more distantly to waders. Until the 21st century, m ...

s and

cormorant Phalacrocoracidae is a family of approximately 40 species of aquatic birds commonly known as cormorants and shags. Several different classifications of the family have been proposed, but in 2021 the IOC adopted a consensus taxonomy of seven ge ...

s), rheas and

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 g ...

s. In the 19th Century, British mariners knew Punta Tombo as "Tombas".

Magellanic penguin colony

The Magellanic penguin colony at Punta Tombo is exposed to

overfishing Overfishing is the removal of a species of fish (i.e. fishing) from a body of water at a rate greater than that the species can replenish its population naturally (i.e. the overexploitation of the fishery's existing fish stock), resulting in th ...

of prey species and

oil spills An oil spill is the release of a liquid petroleum hydrocarbon into the environment, especially the marine ecosystem, due to human activity, and is a form of pollution. The term is usually given to marine oil spills, where oil is released into th ...

, many of which go unreported. One such spill in August of 1991 claimed the lives of at least 16,000 Magellanic penguins, some of which made landfall at Punta Tombo in an oiled condition. The spill coincided with the population's breeding migration. More penguins were expected to have died at sea. The colony's population exceeded 1,000,000 birds in 1982. Between 1994 and 1995, the colony's population dropped 37%. In 1999, the colony was an estimated 400,000 birds. In 2017, over a million birds were present at the colony.

Citations and references

;Citations ;References *Clayton, Jane M. (2014) ''Ships employed in the South Sea Whale Fishery from Britain: 1775-1815: An alphabetical list of ships''. (Berforts Group).

External links

Puntatombo.comPatagonia.com.ar

Punta Tombo, images
Headlands of Argentina Landforms of Chubut Province Protected areas of Chubut Province {{Chubut-geo-stub

Natural reserve

Magellanic penguin colony

See also

Citations and references

External links