Cerro Guido Foundacion

Alex Burridge – MD Tailor-Made Journeys April  2025
All images courtesy of Estancia Cerro Guido and Cerro Guido Foundacion

Sheep farmers (who didn’t traditionally like Pumas) turn to conservation.

At the beginning of 2019, Estancia Cerro Guido set itself an ambitious goal: to find a way to make livestock farming compatible with the conservation of biodiversity in one of the most inhospitable regions on the planet, and the southernmost limit of puma populations.

ESTANCIA CERRO GUIDO

 Estancia Cerro Guido is located 105 kilometers north of Puerto Natales in the Commune of Torres del Paine, Chile. The Estancia covers almost 100,000 hectares (Torres del Paine National park is 225,000 hectares), it is the largest Estancia in the region, bordering the Torres del Paine National Park to the West, the Sierra Baguales to the North, and Argentina to the East.

Historically there has been significant conflict between wildlife and livestock.

Estancia Cerro Guido 

As the number of sheep grew the competition for the best grazing with local guanaco populations increased.  As a result the guanacos began to be hunted by humans. As you can imagine with fewer guanacos pumas began to prey on domestic livestock, thus beginning a conflict that continues to this day.

Over the years, the Estancia grew and occupied even more wild and remote areas inhabited by the puma, which intensified the interaction. In the early years, a single Estancia could lose 10% of its annual production to predation.

As a result the pumas were hunted down and killed; in the 1920s records from a single Estancia show that 84 pumas were killed in one year.

Special breeds of Chilean sheepdog and foxlights are being tested as deterrents

In the first year Cerro Guido Foundation focussed mainly on understanding the distribution and range of the puma and other species living within the Estancia. Through the methodology of camera traps and direct sightings, they were able to identify a total of 32 different puma individuals within the monitored sectors.

  ‘We jointly designed an experiment that seeks to evaluate the effectiveness of the two main measures to reduce attacks on livestock that we are implementing today: livestock protection dogs and Fox deterrent lights.’

THE “PUMA PROJECT” IS BORN

At the beginning of the year 2019 the “puma project” was born. The main objective of this project in its beginnings was to conserve wildlife by maintaining livestock and customs in the area, seeking coexistence between livestock and wildlife.

The main objective of the FCGC seeks to resolve the coexistence of flora, fauna, and livestock. The mission of the initiative is considered necessary to sustain the ecosystem, otherwise, damage and undesirable effects could occur in the environment.

​There is an ideal of raising awareness about the natural and cultural heritage of our country. These concerns and needs led to the creation of the FCGC with the aim of “Preserving the natural and cultural heritage based on harmonious coexistence among its actors, safeguarding the legacy for future generations and humanity”.