The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has released the first comprehensive atlas of the Patagonia Sea, with accurate maps for this ecosystem that were gathered from hundreds of thousands of recordings of individually tracked penguins, albatrosses, sea lions and other marine wildlife. The data spans a 10-year period, and a vast area from southern Brazil to southern Chile.

“This unprecedented atlas was essentially written by the wildlife that live in the Patagonian Sea,” said Claudio Campagna, who runs the WCS’s “Sea and Sky” initiative. “This fills 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.

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