From typicallyspanish.com
Doñana National Park
By h.b.
Jul 9, 2007 - 8:25 PM
The Environment Ministry describes the Doñana National Park, at the mouth of the Guadalquivir River in western Andalucía, as a ‘mosaic of ecosystems’ which, together, give the Park both a unique biodiversity and a unique personality.
Doñana was declared a biosphere reserve in 1981 under the United Nations’ ‘Man and Biosphere (MaB) programme, is a special protection area for birds, and in 1994, was added to UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites. It is also included on the Ramsar List of Wetlands of International Importance.
It covers an area of 54,252 hectares in the provinces of Huelva and Sevilla.
The Park comprises three main ecosystems - the wetlands, its coastal area of shifting sand dunes, and the Mediterranean scrublands - each with its own distinct fauna, and a vast variety of species: 20 species of freshwater fish, 11 of amphibians, 21 different species of reptiles, and 37 land mammals.
Doñana, which is on the main migration route between Europe and Africa, is a breeding ground for 127 of the 360 different species of birds which are catalogued here, and provides a wintering ground for more than half a million waterfowl. Its vast wetlands are a temporary home to species such as flamingo, stork, spoonbills, ibis and herons, with huge colonies of geese also to be seen.
Many species of birds of prey can be seen wheeling in the skies above.
A number of the species found in the Doñana National Park are subject to protection and conservation programmes, such as the endangered Imperial Eagle, and the Iberian Lynx, which is the most threatened species in Spain, and also the most endangered of the world’s 36 species of big cat: only 160 are estimated to be still living in the wild.
A captive breeding programme set up in the Acebuche Centre in Doñana in 2003 saw its first birth in 2005, with a number of other successes since then.
Also found here, are fallow deer, Spanish red deer, the European badger, wild boar, and the Egyptian mongoose.
The rich variety of flora ranges from Mediterranean brushwood – rosemary, thyme, red lavender and rockrose – to stone pines, cork oaks, juniper and heather, with extensive areas of pinewoods forming a boundary between the coastal dunes and the marshlands.
The area which is now a National Park was once the vast delta of the Guadalquivir River which, today, has only one outlet to the sea. The remainder was gradually cut off by the formation of sandbanks and was later transformed into marshland as sediment built up.
The Park began as a hunting ground in the thirteenth century and remained as such for 500 years. It takes its name from Doña Ana Gómez de Mendoza y Silva, the wife of the seventh Duke of Medina Sidonia, who once owned a large part of the land, and who built a residence. The residence he built for her there is still known today as the Palacio de Doñana.