Cabañeros National Park
The Cabañeros National Park ( Parque Nacional de Cabañeros in Spanish ) is a national park and protected area under the EU Birds Directive in the Castile-La Mancha region . It covers an area of 41,804 hectares and is best known for its abundance of wildlife and birds. Apart from some approved hiking trails, access is possible as part of guided hikes or tours in a four-wheel drive vehicle.
location
The national park is located in the northwest of the Ciudad Real Province and in the southwest of the Toledo Province . Its territory belongs to the Montes de Toledo and extends between the Sierra de Rocigalgo and the Sierra del Chorito in the north and the Sierra de Miraflores in the south. The highest point of the national park and the Montes de Toledo at 1448 meters is in the Rocigalgo massif. The rivers Bullaque and Estena , two tributaries of the Guadiana , mark the park boundaries in the east and west. In the south of the park, part of the Raña de Santiago also belongs to the park. "Raña" are plains with solitary trees in the region, which are generally used as pastureland ( dehesa ).
The closest villages in Ciuadad Real Province are Navas de Estena, Horcajo de los Montes, Alcoba de los Montes and Retuerta del Bullaque, while Los Navalucillos and Hontanar are closest in Toledo Province.
Natural spaces
Mountains
The mountains in the national park are made up of quartzites and silicate slate. Their foot is at a height of about 650 m, they reach a maximum of 1448 m. The type of vegetation is hard-leaf vegetation , which is known in Spanish as "monte mediterráneo". As forest or dense bushland, it covers about four fifths of the park area.
Raña
The subsoil of the Raña de Santiago consists of rubble that has been removed from the surrounding mountains. It lies at an altitude of 600 to 750 m. The Raña was also covered by forest and shrubbery until the 1960s, when it was cleared for grain cultivation. The grassy plain with individual trees is reminiscent of a savannah today and is often referred to as the Spanish Serengeti . In the Raña, packs of red deer , vultures and the storks nesting on the trees can be observed.
fauna
Among the animals in the Cabañeros National Park, some are threatened with extinction, such as the Spanish Imperial Eagle ( Aquila adalberti ), the black vulture ( Aegipius monachus ), whose population in the park reached 186 pairs in 2004, or the endangered Iberian lynx ( Lynx pardinus ). The Iberian wolf ( Canis lupus signatus ) was only exterminated in today's park area in the 1970s.
The Iberian ibex ( Capra pyrenaica ) disappeared from the region in the 19th century, but was later released again as game. Also fallow deer and mouflon were settled for hunting. Red deer, roe deer and wild boar are common. The park's smaller predatory mammals include the ichneumon , wildcat , badger and otter .
The bird life in the national park is very rich: in addition to eagle owls, there are also black vultures , imperial eagles , golden eagles , booted eagles , peregrine falcons and other birds of prey . There is only a single breeding pair of the rare black stork . Songbirds are plentiful, including the African Warbler , Whitebeared Warbler, and the Velvet Warbler .
On the Raña, gray bunting and Theklalerche can be found in large numbers. Here also can Sparrow , Black-eared Wheatear , partridge , little bustard , great bustard , white stork , Montagu's Harrier , Bee-eater , European Roller , Hoopoe , Blue Magpie and Southern Gray Shrike observed. Winter guests in the national park are the glider , merlin , hen harrier , red kite and calender lark .
Among the amphibians in the park Spanish newt (see Triturus boscai ), Southern marbled newt ( Triturus pygmaeus ), midwife toad and Painted Disc- . Among the reptiles, the occurrence of the Iberian green lizard ( Lacerta schreiberi ) and the Iberian roller skink ( Chalcides bedriagai ) are worth mentioning.
The Spanish minnow ( Anaecypris hispanica ) and the barbel species Barbus microcephalus are fish that are only found in the Rio Guadiana and its tributaries. The Spanish minnow is in acute danger of extinction.
As representative of the numerous insects in the park, only the butterfly species strawberry tree butterfly , small meadow bird , cardinal and small fire butterfly should be mentioned here.
flora
On the Rañas and at the foot of the mountains there are holm oak forests that have often been planted by humans. Wherever these were overexploited in the past or damaged by forest fires, secondary communities emerged with strawberry trees , rock roses , Erica species and herbaceous plants.
In damp places and on shady slopes there are stands of Portuguese oak with an undergrowth of flowering bushes. In the warmest locations, cork oaks thrive together with Portuguese oaks, strawberry trees, Montpellier maple and a snowball species ( Viburnum tinus ). In the river valleys the forests are formed by the Pyrenees oak , holm oaks, Portuguese oaks, service berries and common hawthorn also thrive there . The peony species Paeonia broteri is also found in these forests . There are three types of riparian forests: ash forests with willows , blackberries and numerous climbing plants, alder forests with vines and finally birch forests ( Betula pendula ssp. Fontqueri ) with holly and buckthorn .
In places there are wetlands in the park, such as the little moors called “trampales”, where bell- shaped heather , various orchid herbs , round-leaved sundew and the butterwort Pinguicula lusitanica thrive.
history
The history of the Cabañeros National Park is linked to the history of the Montes de Toledo region. Between the 13th and 19th centuries, the lands of today's park belonged to the city of Toledo. The city's conditions of use meant that a largely untouched natural landscape was preserved into the 18th century. The people in the region traditionally lived from pasture farming , charcoal burning and beekeeping .
In the 19th century Cabañeros was in the hands of the creditors of the city of Toledo for 25 years (1860–1885), who set up a kind of usufruct administration. The city's debts should be paid off by using it as pasture land and logging. As part of the disamortization of Madoz in 1885, enormous land was sold to a few large landowners through sales and auctions. They built large hunting lodges and used their property almost exclusively for hunting. The residents of the region were not allowed to enter.
In 1982, the Ministry of Defense wanted to set up a firing range for the Spanish armed forces in the remote and almost deserted region . However, the plans met with strong resistance from the Spanish public. Finally, the government of Castile-La Mancha declared the area a Natural Park in 1988 . In November 1995, today's Parque Nacional de Cabañeros was established. At that time the legal situation of the Spanish national parks was unclear, as the long assumed exclusive competence of the central state was declared unconstitutional by the decision of the Constitutional Court of June 26, 1995, but the nature conservation law was not changed until 1997. The law establishing the Cabañeros National Park anticipated many provisions of Ley 41/1997, so the park was administered jointly by the state and region (Castile-La Mancha) from the start.
Because of this history of development, the Cabañeros National Park is now a symbolic project for Spanish nature conservation . To date, only about half of the area of the national park is state-owned, the rest is owned by about 20 large landowners. Hunting is still partly done on private property, and the slopes in the national park are also used or fences are built.
visit
The national park can be reached via the CM-403 highway that connects Toledo and Ciudad Real .
The park administration is based in Pueblo Nuevo del Bullaque, where you can also register for guided hikes. A reservations office in Horcajo de los Montes accepts registrations for excursions in four-wheel drive vehicles through the Raña de Santiago. The visitor center Casa Palillos is located on the south-eastern edge of the national park.
Access to the park is restricted. Some hiking trails are freely accessible, but it is recommended that you be accompanied by a hiking guide. Reservations should be made a few days before your visit. The best time to watch animals is in the morning and evening, good binoculars are an advantage. Dogs are not allowed into the park.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Oriol Alamany, Eulàlia Vicens: Parques Nacionales de España . Lynx Edicions , Barcelona 2003, ISBN 84-87334-45-8
- ↑ a b Parque Nacional de Cabañeros: el parque - Historia
- ↑ Alfonso Mulero Mendigorri: La protección de Espacios Naturales en España . Ediciones Mundi-Prensa, Madrid, 2002, ISBN 84-8476-069-3 , p. 67
Web links
- Ministerio de Agricultura, Alimentación y Medio Ambiente: Parque Nacional de Cabañeros (span.)
- Cabañeros - Turismo en el Parque Nacional (span.)
- World Database on Protected Areas - National Park Cabañeros (English)
- Andreas Heimann: Cabañeros National Park in Spain: A fossil called Lola , spiegel.de
Coordinates: 39 ° 24 ′ N , 4 ° 29 ′ W