Fauna

Discreet wealth

La Palma is a relatively young island. This means that the fauna has had little time to adapt and, therefore, in general, it is not so abundant. Even so, La Caldera shelters an incalculable wealh in classes of fauna like birds, reptiles and invertebrates.

The vast majority of the vertebrates to be found in La Caldera are birds, such as the famous red-billed chough (whose local name is graja ). This bird, a playful member of the crow family with a taste for aerobatics, no longer survives in the rest of the Canary Islands and can now only be found in La Palma. Apart from these choughs, there are also local sub-species of chaffinches and blue tits and a sizeable part of the small colony of La Palma crows, apart from buzzards, sparrow hawks, robins, pipits, blackbirds and swifts.

Mammals are scarcer, althought there are three interesting species of bats. The Barbary Sheep (Ammotragus lervia) is a ruminant originally from the Atlas Mountains in North Africa , it was introduced in the island in 1972. The adverse effect it has had on the endemic flora of the park, however, have made it essential to cull population numbers and there are plans to erradicate it completely within the boundaries of the National Park.

And special mention must also be made of the more than 500 invertebrates that have been found here. Some of them are endemic to the Canary Islands this part of our biological heritage has not been fully studied, so many of its secrets remain unknown to us.

PARQUE NACIONAL LA CALDERA DE TABURIENTE