As my Patagonian guide regaled me with stories of close encounters with pumas, he told me that many believe there are more pumas in Chilean Patagonia than anywhere else in the world. I hadn’t known this, and found myself studying his photographs, particularly one of a cougar flexing her well-defined muscles in grasses not unlike the ones we were driving past. We had just completed a trek in Torres del Paine National Park, but we had only seen guanacos — a cute camelid that happens to be a puma’s favorite food.
Ever since the park was created in the 1970s, hunting pumas has been banned. This protected status, along with a lack of predators and an abundance of food (hare is also on the menu), has helped bolster the number of pumas in the area.
However, pumas here are not without enemies: About 100 pumas a year are killed by ranchers. Pumas enjoy sheep, it turns out, and they’re not above wiping out a herd. On our drive, my guide pointed out a ranch that has lost most of its sheep to the predator.
Officially embracing its interlopers, the ranch now offers puma safaris. Changing its livelihood from ranching to tourism was likely not easy, but from an environmental sustainability perspective, it was the right thing to do.
The new business could also be extremely lucrative. In 2018, wildlife tourism contributed $120 billion to global GDP versus the $23 billion attributed to the illegal trade and poaching of wildlife, according to research by World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC). Gloria Guevara, the president and CEO of WTTC, said it best: “Our message to tourism businesses, employees and visitors ... is that wildlife is worth far more alive than dead.”
Seeing animals in the wild is one of my main motivations to travel, and such stories fill the pages of this magazine every issue. Contributor Megan Hill’s piece about visiting a remote corner of Canada to see grizzly bears reminds me of the time I drove hours above the Arctic Circle, overnighted at a truck stop, flew to the tip of Alaska and boarded a boat in search of polar bears.
Sustainable wildlife tourism is a win-win-win: for the local economy, which has the potential to thrive; for the environment, by protecting animals and ecosystems; and for us — travel professionals who want to share with others the pure and special thrill of seeing animals in their natural habitat.
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