Qualla: El Yunque National Forest

El Yunque National Forest: Introduction

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stan Shebs, CC BY-SA 3.0. The coqui starts singing at dusk. Thousands of them, all at once, a wall of sound that rises from every wet leaf and moss-covered trunk in the forest. The tiny frog, no bigger than a thumbnail, produces a call so loud and so constant that it has become the unofficial voice of Puerto Rico itself. This is El Yunque, the only tropical rainforest in the United States National Forest System, where more than 28,000 acres of Sierra de Luquillo mountainside receive so much rain that the forest floor never dries and the canopy drips even on days the sun shines.

Image: Stan Shebs | CC BY-SA 3.0

El Yunque National Forest: An Anvil in the Clouds

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit RaulGarcia271828, CC BY-SA 4.0. The name likely comes from the Spanish word yunque, meaning anvil, a reference to the flat-topped profile of the Sierra de Luquillo range when viewed from the north. But the Spanish may have borrowed from something older. The Taino people, who carved petroglyphs into the riverbed...

Image: RaulGarcia271828 | CC BY-SA 4.0

El Yunque National Forest: Gold Rivers and Sacred Groves

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gruepig, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Spanish arrived on the island of Borinquen in 1493, and by 1509 they had found gold in the Fajardo and Blanco rivers that drain these mountains. Mines opened along the Sabana, Prieto, La Mina, Mameyes, and Espiritu Santo rivers. But the forest itself they largely left alone. ...

Image: Gruepig | CC BY-SA 4.0

El Yunque National Forest: The Parrot That Almost Vanished

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Southeast Region, CC BY 2.0. The Puerto Rican parrot once numbered in the hundreds of thousands across the island. By 1975, only 13 remained in the wild, all of them in El Yunque. Habitat loss, hunting, and nest predation by rats and pearly-eyed thrashers had driven the species to the edge of extinction. Rec...

Image: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Southeast Region | CC BY 2.0

El Yunque National Forest: Thumbnail Serenades

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geoff Gallice from Gainesville, FL, USA, CC BY 2.0. Of the roughly 16 species of coqui known in Puerto Rico, 13 live in El Yunque. The most famous, Eleutherodactylus coqui, produces its two-note call beginning at sunset and continuing until dawn. The first note, the "co," warns rival males away from its territory. The second, the ...

Image: Geoff Gallice from Gainesville, FL, USA | CC BY 2.0

El Yunque National Forest: Walking Through Rain

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jmoliver (talk · contribs), CC BY-SA 3.0. The forest offers trails ranging from paved interpretive walks to muddy scrambles through dense cloud forest. The Pico El Yunque Trail climbs 1,748 feet over 5.4 miles to the summit of the mountain that gives the forest its name. La Coca Trail, at 1.8 miles, crosses so many strea...

Image: Jmoliver (talk · contribs) | CC BY-SA 3.0