An island full of penguins
Located off the coast of Valparaíso, Cachagua is a small island with a large colony of endangered penguins. This protected natural environment is uninhabited and off limits to visitors. However, visitors may circumnavigate the island on a fishing boat or by canoe for a close-up look at these waddling creatures.
Penguins live not only at the South Pole but also on Isla Cachagua, a tiny rocky islet of 150 by 300 metres in central Chile. The island is located on the Costa Esmeralda, north of Valparaíso and Viña del Mar. This is a paradise for sea otters, dolphins, sea lions and sea birds, such as the endangered Peruvian pelican. But the main attraction of this rocky islet, nicknamed ‘Penguin Island’, is the noisy colony of over 2,000 Magellan and Humboldt Penguins.
Santiago de Chile
Named after an explorer
The Magellan Penguin is named after the 15th-century Portuguese explorer Fernão de Magalhães (Ferdinand Magellan). These animals feed on squid, krill and shellfish, and are also a tasty meal for sea lions and birds of prey themselves. The penguins live in large colonies along the coast of Chile, on Tierra del Fuego and the Falkland Islands. There are several million Magellan Penguins, but overfishing, climate change and oil spills are reducing their numbers fast. That is why the animals have been added to the ‘threatened’ Red List of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.Threatened with extinction
The Humboldt Penguin is named after another great explorer, 19th-century German scientist Alexander von Humboldt. This endangered penguin species lives along the coast of Peru and Chile, where the cold Humboldt Current brings large schools of anchovies and sardines. The animals breed in holes filled with guano (bird manure), but the extraction of guano has caused a large part of this natural habitat to disappear. The number of Humboldt Penguins has reduced to only 50,000.
“Rent a motorboat for a penguin excursion”