Animals in Peru

Peru is the third largest country in South America, and few places on Earth pack so many climates into one territory. About a third of its 34 million people live in Lima, on a coast that is one of the driest deserts in the world, where it almost never rains. That desert coast faces some of the richest seas on the planet: the cold Humboldt Current brings up nutrients that feed huge schools of fish, and with them sea lions, seabirds and dolphins on islands like the Ballestas. Inland rise the Andes, where Peru holds about 70 percent of the world's tropical glaciers. Their valleys and high grasslands, the puna, are cold and dry, the home of vicuñas, llamas and Andean condors, while on their eastern slopes misty cloud forests shelter the spectacled bear. Beyond them, the Amazon rainforest covers about 60 percent of the country, hot and rainy all year, with jaguars, monkeys, macaws and river dolphins. Peru has more than 1,800 bird species, among the most of any country.

People and wildlife have shaped each other for thousands of years. Andean peoples domesticated the llama long before the Incas, and the droppings of seabirds on the coastal islands, called guano, were so valuable as fertilizer that they made Peru rich in the 1800s. Peru created its first national park, Cutervo, in 1961, and today Manu and Huascarán national parks are UNESCO World Heritage Sites, along with Machu Picchu, which protects cloud forest as well as ruins.

Tourism and wildlife meet everywhere. Visitors combine Machu Picchu with condor watching in the Colca Canyon, boat trips to the Ballestas Islands, jungle lodges in Tambopata and Manu, where macaws gather at clay licks, and river cruises from Iquitos to see pink dolphins.

Peru has wild animals that can be dangerous in some situations, mainly in remote jungle, mountains and rivers, but serious incidents are rare for travelers who go with local guides. Venomous snakes are the real risk. Pit vipers cause most snakebites in the country, mostly among farm workers in fields and plantations of the Amazon lowlands, and rattlesnakes live in the savannas of the far southeast. Wearing boots, watching where you step and never putting your hands into holes or under logs prevent most bites, and anyone bitten should get to a hospital at once for antivenom.

Wild cats are powerful predators, but they avoid people and attacks are extremely rare. Bears in the cloud forests are shy too, though they can react if surprised at close range. In the Amazon, caimans rest along the rivers and large constrictor snakes hunt in swamps and flooded forest, but they are rarely a threat to people. Off the coast, several kinds of shark live in Pacific waters, yet incidents with swimmers are very uncommon. In the Andes, the bigger risks are altitude and cold, so it is worth spending a few days getting used to the height before long hikes.

Peru's best known animals are spread across its three great regions, so seeing them means moving between the coast, the mountains and the jungle. Llamas are the easiest: they graze around Cusco, in the Sacred Valley and even on the terraces of Machu Picchu. The spectacled bear, the only bear in South America, lives in the cloud forests on the eastern slopes of the Andes, including the forest around Machu Picchu, though it is shy and seen mostly by luck. In the Amazon, lodges along the rivers of Tambopata and Manu give good chances of seeing capybaras on the banks, sloths in the trees and, in the drier months from about June to October, a jaguar resting on a sandbank. The flooded forests of Pacaya Samiria, near Iquitos, are anaconda country, while boa constrictors live in forests across the lowlands. White tailed deer are found from the dry forests of the north coast to the high Andes. The cougar, the ocelot and other wild cats live in almost every region, from the jungle to the mountains, but they are shy and mostly active at night, so most records come from camera traps.