La Cuniacha animal park keeps animals that are or were once indigenous to the Pyrenees. They’ve lots of rare species including european lynx, bison, iberan ibex, wolves and lots of different types of chamois and deer. It’s a great place to visit any time of year but with the heavy snows we’ve had recently we visited the park on snowshoes which was just fantastic.
Isabel's first trip to La Cuniacha
Isabel hadn’t been to the park before and was very excited by the close encouters with deer, lynx and ibex!
Iberian ibex in the snow
Ibex have huge curled horns. Although the Iberian version still lives in several ranges the Pyrenean sub-species became extinct after the final female was killed by a tree falling on her during a storm in the late 90’s. A small herd of males lingered on in the Ordesa National Park until 2002 when they finally died out.
Anna taking the lead
There was loads of snow and it was good fun snowshoeing round. The park is really well laid out and it takes two to three hours to wander round with the path passing through some of the animals enclosures. The scenery is great with views across the valley and up to the cliffs of Sierra de Partacua.
Looking up to the cliffs of the Sierra de Partacua
For me the lynx are the highlight of the park. In summer these can be difficult to see but in the snow they stood out really well. I counted 6 and saw one climbing a tree which was a real treat. They’ve had two sets of lynx cubs in recent years – watch a video of when the cubs were young. This young one was washing himself in full view of the viewing platform.
European Lynx in the snow
One animal that looked totall at home in the snow was the european bison. These animals looked prehistoric as they plodded across the meadows towards us.
European bison in the snow
La Cuniacha is in the Valle de Tena near the village of Piedrafita. It’s open year round and is easy to visit on any of our holidays in the Valle de Tena.
0 Comments