Patagonian Pumas

Puma tracking in Torres del Paine, Chile

Every traveller knows wildlife can be gloriously unpredictable and that placing an animal firmly on your must-see list is often the surest way not to see it at all. So it had been for me and pumas for over 25 years.

Puma tracking in Torres del Paine National Park, deep in the south of Chile, is so often described as the ultimate wildlife experience in Patagonia. Yet more than 20 years after my first visit, and after countless returns to Patagonia, I still hadn’t seen one.

This time, though, I was determined to improve the odds. I had gone all in: several nights in the conservation area of Estancia Cerro Guido alongside a full day with some of the best puma trackers in Patagonia.

How Torres del Paine became one of the best places to see puma

One thing weighing in my favour was that attitudes towards these great cats have changed dramatically over the years.

Although puma hunting was outlawed in Chile back in 1980, the practice continued for decades, particularly among landowners protecting livestock. Bounties of US$400 for a female and US$250 for a male could quickly double a gaucho’s income and the impact on the population was devastating. Looking back now, that perhaps explains why pumas were barely even mentioned during my earliest visits to Torres del Paine.

Thankfully, change has come.

Much of that progress has been driven by the work of Estancia Cerro Guido, which sits on a vast tract of land east of the national park itself. Over the last decade, the estancia has worked closely with former hunters and local gauchos to find a solution that protects both livestock and pumas.

As it turns out, the answer was surprisingly simple. What are cats afraid of? Dogs.

Conservation at Estancia Cerro Guido

Working alongside an ex-hunter, Cerro Guido has developed a hugely successful programme using Maremma Sheepdogs and Great Pyrenees. Each puppy is raised alongside newborn lambs with minimal human contact beyond its handler. The dogs grow up believing they are part of the flock itself.

When a puma approaches, the dogs bark aggressively, scaring the cats away and protecting both sheep and predator in the process. It is a wonderfully elegant solution and one that is helping puma numbers recover across the region.

Cerro Guido has backed this up with a dedicated research and conservation project studying puma movements throughout Patagonia, building vital data for the species’ long-term protection. It is the researchers from this programme who guide guests in search of sightings.

My first puma sighting in Patagonia

And so we climbed into a Hilux with a guide and headed towards the conservation area, cameras ready and researchers driving ahead of us.

As we entered the reserve, a 56-hectare stretch of protected land created as a safe haven for pumas, the lead researcher explained what to expect. Sunset is one of the cats’ most active periods, she said, but even then the chances of a sighting remained roughly 50:50.

She had barely finished explaining how the reserve functions when her radio crackled into life.

‘Puma ahead.’

Suddenly everything changed.

Just a few hundred yards in front of us, a female puma had appeared and, with that, my 20-year wait was finally over.

Slowly edging forwards, she came into view. A large female moving effortlessly through the scrub, appearing and vanishing behind low bushes, entirely unbothered by our presence.

For almost 20 minutes we watched the apex predator of Patagonia move through the evening light. Muscles rippled beneath her coat as clouds swirled dramatically around the mountains beyond. Some moments really are worth waiting two decades for.

More Puma tracking in Torres del Paine

When she finally disappeared from sight, we continued exploring the reserve, checking camera traps and discovering that a mother and cub had passed through barely an hour earlier. The trackers booked for the following morning suddenly had a lot to live up to.

Pumas are most active at dawn and dusk, so the next day began beneath a sky still full of stars.

The set-up was similar to the evening before: two vehicles, one carrying the tracker and another carrying guests and guide. This system allows trackers to cover far more ground and continue searching once a sighting has been found.

Leaving Cerro Guido before sunrise, we drove towards Torres del Paine National Park with the first light beginning to touch the mountains.

Oscar was leading the search that morning. A former gaucho and true Patagonian, he had grown up on horseback in these landscapes. Life had clearly been hard at times until a chance encounter with Viktor, our lead guide, who recognised his remarkable instinct for tracking wildlife.

Tracking Mandarina

It did not take long for Oscar’s talents to become apparent.

The radio burst into life.

‘Pumas on the hillside.’

Binoculars emerged. Scopes were unpacked. Long lenses swung into position. Yet still I could see nothing.

‘Definitely there. I’m looking at the mother – the cub is in the gully.’

We pulled over and set up a Swarovski scope on its tripod. Slowly scanning the hillside, I finally saw her.

‘That’s Mandarina,’ Oscar announced calmly.

Not only had he spotted the puma, but he had also recognised her individually from a distance at which I would struggle to identify close friends.

To this day, I still have no idea how he saw her. At first, she must have been almost half a mile away: a tiny beige shape against a beige hillside scattered with green and brown scrub in the grey light of dawn.

Yet as the morning brightened, Mandarina and her cub gradually moved closer into view. Soon, we no longer needed scopes to follow her movements as she left the cub hidden safely in the gully and began searching for food.

Wildlife watching in Torres del Paine

I would love to say the story ended with a dramatic hunt and a guanaco dragged triumphantly back to her cub. This time, though, Patagonia had different plans.

Mandarina moved silently up and down the slope, pausing occasionally to scent the air. At one point a lone guanaco came briefly into sight before wisely disappearing at speed.

Still, none of us could look away. Snow showers drifted across the mountains while we watched, mesmerised by the way she moved through the landscape, at times almost disappearing completely despite being in full view.

By now, a handful of other vehicles had realised what we were watching and begun to gather nearby. Mandarina appeared to reach the same conclusion we did; moments later she and her cub slipped quietly over the crest of the hill and vanished.

The original plan had been to search for pumas at dawn before spending the day exploring Torres del Paine’s other wildlife. Yet the puma show was not over.

Less than a mile away, another mother and cub were spotted.

After more than 20 years of trying, I had seen five pumas in under 24 hours.

Beyond the pumas

With the sun climbing higher and the cats becoming harder to find, attention shifted towards the park’s remarkable birdlife – I have always been something of a closet twitcher.

Condors began riding the warming thermals overhead while woodpeckers hammered away in the forests and flamingos stirred awake across the lagoons. Herds of guanacos wandered across the plains beneath the granite towers of Torres del Paine.

The morning passed so quickly that when we stopped beside Lago Pehoé for lunch with the chef, I genuinely had no idea what time it was.

Although there were no further puma sightings that afternoon, we spent the rest of the day exploring quieter corners of the national park, searching for wildlife and discovering extraordinary views across Patagonia’s most famous landscape.

Why puma tracking changed the way I see Torres del Paine

Later that evening, back at the lodge with a pisco sour in hand, I found myself reflecting on all my years visiting Torres del Paine. Over the years I must have spent almost two months in the park and yet never had I experienced such an extraordinary 24 hours.

Then my watch buzzed, reminding me to move. In a place I have always associated with trekking, my greatest day in Patagonia had turned out to be something entirely different.