Biologist Emiliano Donadío, from Rewilding Argentina, replicates the arguments of Patagonian sheep producers: Neither the protected areas nor the guanacos are the problem

First, the factual data of history: in Patagonia the guanacos were “always” (thousands of years), that is, long, long before sheep. The first explorers of the area, including Charles Darwin, mention the large number of guanacos and other species of wildlife that could be observed, while contemporary scholars confirm the historical presence of this ungulate in South America. Kenneth Raedeke, a biologist at the University of Washington, in his doctoral thesis in 1979 estimated that there were between 30 and 50 million guanacos before the arrival of the European conquerors, while William Lauenronth, from Colorado State University, in 1998 estimated that About 22 million specimens lived in the approximately 790 thousand square kilometers of the Argentine Patagonian steppe. Now, does all this serve as an argument for sheep producers who blame the food shortage on this large native herbivore and the presence of protected areas that house them? Probably not, but let's look at more ...