Location: The Punta Popper urban reserve is located within the Atlantic Coast Reserve area, located northeast of the mouth of the Rio Grande, with the city of the same name being the closest urban center.

Conservation value:

The conservation values ​​of the Punta Popper Reserve are similar to those of the Atlantic Coast Reserve since they are located in the same area, where the main objective is to protect the wintering areas of the birds known as "t-shirts", migratory birds that they spend the northern winter moving towards the austral summer. In addition, it constitutes the feeding and movement zone of three important species of seabirds of the South-West Atlantic, which breed in other protected areas or areas of interest. These are the yellow tufted penguin, the Magellanic penguin and the southern giant petrel, which use the waters of the reserve to move during the breeding season.

In addition, Punta Popper represents a special area of ​​environmental interest, since it takes into account the protection of the Rio Grande basin, its functionality and interaction with the Atlantic coast; the protection of the sector as a typical landscape in order to provide opportunities for education, research, training and tourism, in order to promote the relationship between man and his environment, facilitating citizen participation in the management of the territory.

What services does it offer?

You can walk the area, bird watching, educational and scientific activities.

Description:

Punta Popper is a geographical feature of the Argentine Sea, in the northeast sector of the Big Island of Tierra del Fuego. It has low, sandy and silty coasts, with abundant pebbles. It presents remarkable tidal amplitudes. It is located in front of the city of Rio Grande, from which it is separated by the mouth of the Rio Grande. The Popper point is the end of a triangular peninsula 2 km long and just over 7 meters above sea level at high tide, which extends as bar or spike ending at its end in the form of a hammer perpendicular and flooding in the high tides. This cape divides the estuarial waters corresponding to the mouth of the Grande river (those that border it by its western margin), of the oceanic ones of the surrounding sea (corresponding to the Eastern coast). The marine border continues towards greater latitudes in a southeasterly direction, in a low and rectilinear way for 11 km, until it ends at Cape Peñas, over 30 meters above sea level.

The reserve has an area of ​​1.23 ha. in its surroundings it is possible to observe sea scholarship (Limosa haemastica), reddish beach sandpiper (Calidris canutus) and white-rumped sandpiper (C. fuscicollis), among others. At the same time, it is a nesting area for southern bandurria (Theristicus melanopis), common cauquén (Chloephaga picta) and double-necked plover (Charadrius falklandicus).

Creation story:

Punta Popper is included within the area of ​​the Atlantic Coast Reserve, with the category of "Natural Coastal Reserve", declared as such by Provincial Law No. 415 of the year 1998; in 2012, by municipal ordinance 3042 this geographical feature is declared as an Urban Natural Reserve.