The reserve is a refuge for many species of fauna, some of them threatened, such as the canclón, a water bird that lives in the lagoon of the same name, and the crocodile of the coast, which has already disappeared in other areas of the coast. Due to the diversity and great extension of aquatic environments that the reserve protects, in the year 1990 it was declared a Ramsar site, an international recognition for wetlands of great importance.