Wildlife in Torres del Paine

Powerful and elusive, pumas are Torres del Paine’s most iconic animal, and seeing one is a highlight of any trip.

While pumas tend to steer away from the areas with the most popular hiking trails, there’s always a chance of seeing them when hiking off the beaten track or transferring between different parts of the park. To increase your chances, it’s best to join a dedicated puma tracking trip led by a naturalist guide. Encountering them while learning about their behaviour and ecology is a truly amazing experience.

Many guides rate winter as one of the best times to see pumas, when they come down from the high slopes to hunt and are more easily spotted against the snow.

Native to South America, the guanaco is the wild relation of the llama, and can be found extensively across the Torres del Paine region. They are a common sight when out hiking.

The elegant camelids stand just over three feet (one metre) at the shoulder. Their herds usually consist of several females and their young, plus a single dominant male. Other male guanacos gather in bachelor herds.

Before the arrival of Europeans, guanacos were once hunted by Torres del Paine's indigenous Tehuelche inhabitants for meat and leather. Today, their only natural predators are pumas – guanacos make up the majority of their diet.

Watching condors flying above the Paine Massif is about as classic a Patagonian experience as it’s possible to have.

With a wingspan of up to 10.5 feet (3.2 m), the condor is the largest bird of prey in the world – only the ocean-going albatrosses beat it for size. While their population numbers have been declining across South America as a whole in recent years, in Torres del Paine condors are thriving, thanks to a healthy puma population leaving plenty of guanaco carrion for them to eat.

You're most likely to see them soaring around the highest cliff faces in the park, but up close experiences are better in the late evening when they come home to roost. Take a dedicated trip to a lookout point to view these magnificent birds at close range.

The huemul deer is Chile’s national animal. Critically endangered and easily spooked, the skittish Huemul deer is a rare sighting in Torres del Paine. With stocky builds and unusually large ears, they're well suited to life in the Patagonian wilderness, and are always on the lookout for danger.

Most sightings have been in the west of the National Park; in areas off-the-beaten-track, where the trails are quietest and you can take your time looking out for them: spotting one is often a matter of luck, but it's a magical moment when it happens.

Active monitoring and conservation programmes are in place to try to increase huemul deer numbers up in the park and the surrounding areas.

There is plenty of wildlife in Torres del Paine beyond its most headline-grabbing species, and time with a local guide can really help you appreciate the smaller mammals and bird you might encounter.

One of the most commonly encountered small mammals is the culpeo, a type of fox that follows in the wake of pumas, scavenging for food. Skunks and armadillos can also be seen, though they are less active in the daytime.

There are around 105 species of bird in Torres del Paine. Look out for the nandu, or rhea, in the eastern part of the park, a South American ostrich. On the waterways, there are black necked swans and Patagonian flamingos, while the park’s forests are home to the cachaña, or Austral parrot.

Head out from Torres del Paine’s gateway city of Punta Arenas and there’s the opportunity to visit two very special penguin colonies.

The first is the king penguin colony at the unfortunately-named Useless Bay, which can be visited on a day trip by small plane or an overnight ferry trip. This is the only place that king penguins breed outside the Subantarctic. The king penguin’s unusual breeding cycle means there is usually a good chance of seeing fluffy chicks.

Closer to Punta Arenas is a colony of around 120,000 Magellanic penguins, which have made their home on Isla Magdalena, where they nest in burrows. In summer, take a day or half-day trip by boat from Punta Arenas to walk among them on the island.

Punta Arenas is a superb whale watching destination, but its location puts it in prime place to see humpback whales. Between December and March you can make a day trip to the rich waters of nearby Francisco Coloane Marine Park, Chile's largest marine reserve, where you can watch humpbacks feeding and breaching against a spectacular mountain backdrop.

For a truly unmatched experience, it’s also possible to extend your trip and spend two nights at an ecocamp research base run by local marine biologists. Here, you can spend time recording wildlife with scientists, exploring the fjords while you look for whales, dolphins, sea lions, Magellanic penguins and more.

On a wildlife watching trip around the Chilean Fjords or Magellan Straight, you can sail or kayak with huge pods of Austral and Commerson's dolphins.

With the stunning wilderness landscape in the background, watching these playful creatures leap out of the water will bring a smile to anyone's face. Commerson's dolphins especially are incredibly active and fast-paced swimmers, but given that can can be found in pods of up to a hundred individuals, spotting them won't usually be a problem.

Sail from Punta Arenas to Isla Marta, home to over 1,000 noisy, burly sea lions. They can grow up to 3 metres in length, males can weigh up to 800 lbs, and they're not afraid to push their weight around on land. Much more graceful in the water and very inquisitive, they're curious enough to swim up and around the boat to get to know you a bit better. 

If you want to see as much as possible in one trip, double up your wildlife spotting and see sea lions in the Chilean Fjiords on a whale watching trip.