The Palo Verde National Park, in Spanish is a National Park

National park

A national park is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individual nations designate their own national parks differently A national park is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or...

 of Costa Rica

Costa Rica

Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....

, part of the Tempisque Conservation Area

Tempisque Conservation Area

Tempisque Conservation Area is an administrative area which is managed by SINAC for the purposes of conservation in the western part of Costa Rica, including the Tempisque River valley and the Nicoya Peninsula...

, that contains much of the area of the valley of the Tempisque River

Tempisque River

The Tempisque River, or Rio Tempisque, is 144 km long, located entirely in Costa Rica flowing from the Guanacaste Cordillera near the Orosí Volcano and emptying into the Gulf of Nicoya...

 and covers an area of 45,492 acres in Guanacaste Province

Guanacaste Province

Guanacaste is a province of Costa Rica located in the northwestern part of the country, along the coast of the Pacific Ocean. To the north it borders Nicaragua. To the east is the Alajuela Province, and to the southeast is the Puntarenas Province. It is the most sparsely populated of all the...

, 30 km west of Canas

Canas

Canas or Cañas may refer to:People:* Alberto Cañas Escalante, Costa Rican politician* Antonio José Cañas, Salvadoran military officer, diplomat and politician* Carlos Cañas, Salvadoran painter...

. The surrounding region is mostly tropical dry forests, and the Park concentrates on conserving vital floodplain, marshes, limestone ridges, and seasonal pools from the encroachment of civilization which was putting the ecology of the area at risk.

Geography

The park has a Ranger Station which open for visitors from 8am to dusk, and has potable water and restrooms. There is also a Biological Station

Palo Verde Biological Station

The Palo Verde Biological Research Station is located in the Guanacaste Province of Costa Rica, and is one of the three research stations operated by the Organization for Tropical Studies . The Biological Research Station is located inside Palo Verde National Park...

 on the site operated by the Organization for Tropical Studies

Organization for Tropical Studies

The Organization for Tropical Studies is a network of ecological research stations created in Costa Rica in 1963. OTS is run by a non-profit consortium of 63 universities, based in the United States, Australia and Latin America . The corporate headquarters of OTS are at Duke University, in...

. A major feature of the park is the density and variety of bird species, a major factor in the creation of the reserve, due in part to its diverse ecology, with 15 different topographical zones from evergreen forests to mangrove swamps. Birds spotted regularly in the park include Great Curassow

Great Curassow

The Great Curassow is a large, pheasant-like bird from the Neotropics. At in length and in weight, this is a very large cracid. No other cracid match its maximum weight, but its length is matched by a few other cracids....

s, Scarlet Macaw

Scarlet Macaw

The Scarlet Macaw is a large, colorful macaw. It is native to humid evergreen forests in the American tropics. Range extends from extreme south-eastern Mexico to Amazonian Peru, Bolivia and Brazil in lowlands up to up to...

s, white ibis

White Ibis

There are three species of bird named White Ibis.* American White Ibis, Eudocimus albus* Australian White Ibis, Threskiornis molucca* Asiatic White Ibis is an alternative name for the Black-headed Ibis, Threskiornis melanocephala...

, roseate spoonbill

Roseate Spoonbill

The Roseate Spoonbill, Platalea ajaja, is a gregarious wading bird of the ibis and spoonbill family, Threskiornithidae...

s, anhinga

Anhinga

The Anhinga , sometimes called Snakebird, Darter, American Darter, or Water Turkey, is a water bird of the warmer parts of the Americas. The word "anhinga" comes from the Brazilian Tupi language and means devil bird or snake bird.It is a cormorant-like bird with an average body length of , a...

s, jabiru

Jabiru

The Jabiru is a large stork found in the Americas from Mexico to Argentina, except west of the Andes. It is most common in the Pantanal region of Brazil and the Eastern Chaco region of Paraguay. It is the only member of the genus Jabiru...

s, and wood stork

Wood Stork

The Wood Stork is a large American wading bird in the stork family Ciconiidae. It was formerly called the "Wood Ibis", though it is not really an ibis.-Appearance:...

s among many others.

The park protects one of the most endangered ecosystems. It is one of the last remaining tropical dry rainforests that once covered most of Central America. Tropical dry rainforests now exist in less than 0.1% of their original size and are considered to be the most endangered ecosystems in the tropics.

History

Palo Verde National Park was declared a Wildlife Refuge during the 1970s because of over 60 different species of birds used the Laguna, or wetland, as a migratory stop. There were once 35,000 black bellied whistling ducks, 25,000 blue winged teal, and several hundred migrating ducks during the dry season Later the park was declared a national park and operated under the government agency called MINAE, Ministry of the Energy and Environment. In the 1990s, the park was put on the RAMSAR list of wetlands of International Importance and also on the Montreux Record

External links

• Palo Verde National Park at Costa Rica National Parks