Overview
- Park rangers and conservation staff found continuous traces of the huillín in the Río Grande sector of Los Alerces, a discovery reported on Tuesday that ends about four decades without records inside the park.
- Officials characterize the pattern of repeated signs as the start of a recolonization process and have opened targeted monitoring to locate burrows, map river use and record new evidence of presence.
- Local residents, fishing guides and tourism operators helped orient patrols by reporting sighting locations and routes used by the otters, improving the speed and reach of field searches.
- Park authorities issued immediate protective guidance for visitors, including limits on fires to permitted areas, strict waste controls and a ban on pets to reduce disturbance and disease risk to settling individuals.
- The huillín (Lontra provocax) is listed as critically endangered in Argentina and its return signals improving connected river corridors but also highlights ongoing threats from shoreline alteration, past hunting and invasive mink that monitoring must address.