The Jones-Perry Praise of Puerto Madryn
In 1882 Sir Love Jones-Parry was looking for a place in Patagonia for Welsh immigrants to settle. Once founding and naming Puerto Madryn after his estate in Wales, history has it that he was a bit too positive in his description of the area: The 162 Welsh settlers who arrived by ship in 1886, drawn by his praise, did not agree with his assessment and were at first not happy about the place.
Puerto Madryn’s Modern-Day Bird Watching
These days Puerto Madryn is a bustling, popular tourist destination with around 100,000 inhabitants. The nearby Península Valdés is also a nature reserve and UNESCO World Heritage Site. This peninsula is rich with wildlife, home to guanacos, rheas, maras, and more than 180 bird species.
Sea Life in Puerto Madryn
The Puerto Madryn coasts are similarly famous for their marine mammals: In the sheltered Golfo San José, southern right whales gather between May and December to mate and give birth. The shoreline and coastal waters are also inhabited by sea lions, fur seals, elephant seals, Magellanic penguins, and killer whales.