📍Karukinka National Park, Tierra del Fuego

Tierra del Fuego translates to “Land of Fire” and is one of Patagonia’s crown jewels. Today we had the privilege of going to Jackson Bay within the Karukinka National Park 😍 Karukinka is a private national park in Tierra del Fuego donated to the Wildlife Conservation Society by Goldman Sachs. There are no roads that lead to this part of Tierra del Fuego so the only way to access it is by water and with special permission.

View we were greeted with when we arrived on shore

When we arrived early in Jackson Bay it was littered with not only elephant seals and their pups but plastic galore (much more on that later.) The population of elephant seals here is actually lower this year due to the bird flu that is harming many animals in this region of the world. The darker ones you see in the pictures are the pups. This is when you really need audio as the noises of these elephant seals are an array of burps and farts on repeat 😂  

Middle 📸 credit: naturlaist Alex Searle

Some fun facts about elephant seals are that male elephant seals are 50% larger than females. Elephant seals have adapted to be able to hold their breath underwater for up to 2 hours! They have a higher volume of blood to store oxygen and they even slow down their heart rate from 90 beats per minute to only 3 by sleeping as they dive!

We hiked through a subantarctic forest up to a waterfall where we found guanaco bones, observed Andean condors flying over the mountains, and enjoyed lots of time on the beach observing the elephant seals.

Andean Condor flying overhead
📸Photo by naturalist Alex Searle