New Atlas of the Patagonian Sea
- New Atlas of the Patagonian Sea Photo
- A southern elephant seal swims in a kelp bed in the Patagonian Sea.
- ©Valeria Falabella/WCS
November 10, 2009
Recording hundreds of thousands of signals sent by satellite transmitters fitted on penguins, albatrosses, and marine mammals, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Birdlife International have released the first atlas of South America’s Patagonian Sea.
The atlas contains the most accurate maps ever assembled for this ecosystem and shows key migratory corridors spanning from coastlines to deep-sea feeding areas off the continental shelf hundreds of miles away.
Data for the atlas was gathered by a team of 25 scientists working over a 10-year period. The team tracked 16 species of marine animals, which produced some 280,000 uplinks of data over the Patagonian Sea, a huge area ranging from southern Brazil to southern Chile.
Called Atlas of the Patagonian Sea: Species and Spaces, the 300-page book was edited by Valeria Falabella and Claudio Campagna of WCS, and John Croxall of Birdlife International.
The atlas, which is in English and Spanish, will be used to help inform policy decisions in the region such as managing fisheries and charting transportation routes of oil tankers. This vast region, which spans 1.1 million square miles, is increasingly threatened by burgeoning development and overfishing.
“This unprecedented atlas was essentially written by the wildlife that live in the Patagonian Sea,” said Dr. Campagna, who runs the WCS Sea and Sky initiative. “It helps fill in many gaps of knowledge and should serve as a blueprint for future conservation efforts in this region.”
The atlas underscores the need for a new network of marine protected areas that would include open-sea environments linked to key coastal areas. Many of the species tracked travel vast distances between their breeding grounds and feeding areas. For example, satellite data revealed that southern elephant seals travel more than 6,200 miles during an average season at sea, plus an equal distance in repeated vertical dives for food.
The list of species tracked for the atlas includes five species of albatross, three species of petrel, four varieties of penguin, two fur seal species, the South American sea lion, and the southern elephant seal.
The completion of the Atlas of the Patagonian Sea is due in large part to the generosity and long-standing support of the Liz Claiborne and Art Ortenberg Foundation for the WCS “Sea and Sky” initiative. WCS’s conservation work in this region also receives support from the Mitsubishi Foundation for the Americas and Mr. and Mrs. James M. Large, Jr.