Sangay National Park (Spanish: Parque Nacional Sangay) is a protected area in the provinces of Morona-Santiago, Chimborazo, Tungurahua, Cañar, and Azuay in Ecuador. The park includes two active volcanoes, Tungurahua and Sangay, and one extinct volcano, El Altar (Kapak Urku). It covers elevations from 900 to 5,319 meters (2,953 to 17,451 feet) above sea level and includes many different environments, such as glaciers, volcanic areas, tropical rainforests, cloud forests, wetlands, grasslands, and one of the largest páramo regions in Ecuador. The park has 327 lakes that feed into a wetland system covering 31.5 square kilometers (12.2 square miles).
Because of its diverse ecosystems and geological features, as well as its rich variety of plant and animal life, the park was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1983. In 1992, it was placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger due to illegal hunting, overgrazing, unplanned road building, and human activity near the park’s edges. It was removed from the endangered list in 2005.
Biodiversity
Sangay National Park protects a large number of native species because of its many different habitats, rich volcanic soil, and landscape that has changed little over time. More than 3,000 types of flowering plants have been found in the park, along with over 430 bird species, 107 mammal species, 33 amphibian species, 14 reptile species, and 17 fish species.
The park is an important home for rare Andean animals, such as the mountain tapir and spectacled bear. It is especially important for protecting the endangered mountain tapir. In the forests below the park, animals like spectacled bears, giant otters, jaguars, ocelots, margays, Brazilian tapirs, white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus ustus), little red brocket deer, and Northern pudu live. Cougars and pampas cats have also been seen in the park. A species of shrew opossum called Caenolestes sangay was first described in 2013 using specimens collected from Sangay National Park.
Over 400 bird species live in the park, and it has been recognized as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International. Birds that live in the park include the Andean condor and Andean cock-of-the-rock.
In 2016, a new frog species in the genus Pristimantis (Pristimantis tinguichaca) was discovered in the park’s cloud forest.