Rescuing Aysén’s rheas

What is now Patagonia National Park used to be a cattle ranch that displaced the native fauna for decades. Thus, the rheas in the Aysén region were on the verge of local extinction, with only 20 rheas remaining in 2008.

To reverse this trend, and after the purchase of Hacienda Chacabuco in 2014, Rewilding Chile, together with Tompkins Conservation, initiated a program for the conservation and recovery of the Ñandú, establishing a first nursery, Puesto Ñandú, to provide protection for this species and carry out monitoring activities aimed at identifying threats, natural predators and improving knowledge of the area’s population.

From this initial enthusiasm, two breeding males, Alas and Douglas, were born, who for years were in charge of boosting the rhea population in the wild through their offspring. Today, these specimens were transferred to the Reserva Quimán Native Fauna Breeding Centre, a strategic partner of Rewilding Chile, to improve the genetic diversity of the new broods from the reserve, which will later be released in Patagonia National Park.

Photo: Valentina Thenoux for Rewilding Chile

Photo: Valentina Thenoux for Rewilding Chile

Photo: Valentina Thenoux for Rewilding Chile

Photo: Valentina Thenoux for Rewilding Chile

Photo: Valentina Thenoux for Rewilding Chile

Photo: Valentina Thenoux for Rewilding Chile

Photo: Valentina Thenoux for Rewilding Chile

Photo: Valentina Thenoux for Rewilding Chile

Photo: Valentina Thenoux for Rewilding Chile

Photo: Valentina Thenoux for Rewilding Chile

Photo: Valentina Thenoux for Rewilding Chile

Photo: Valentina Thenoux for Rewilding Chile

For Alejandra Saavedra, wildlife ranger and coordinator of Rewilding Chile’s Breeding Centre, “having Alas and Douglas and transferring them to the Quimán Reserve allows us to hatch new chats with strengthened genetics, which will allow the ecosystem of these birds in Patagonia to be enriched and their population to grow at a faster rate.”

In this way, the new generation of charitos born to Douglas and Alas have better genetic conditions, larger size, better plumage, and general conditions that will allow them to reinsert themselves more easily into the natural state of the Park and run freely across the Patagonian steppe.

It should be noted that thanks to the rewilding work carried out in the last census (March 2021), 68 adult rheas and 24 free rheas were found in Patagonia National Park. The goal is to increase the population to 100 free-living adult rheas, which represents a real opportunity for reproduction and, therefore, population numerical recovery, allowing their functional recovery in the ecosystem as herbivorous seed dispersers and as a critical species of the Patagonian steppe along with the guanaco.