Tracking and Shielding Chile's Blue Whales in the Gulf of Corcovado

Fundación MERI (Melimoyu Ecosystem Research Institute) is a Chilean nonprofit founded in 2012 to research and conserve the marine and terrestrial ecosystems of northern Patagonia. Its long-running blue whale surveys in the Gulf of Corcovado, one of the Southern Hemisphere's most important blue whale feeding and nursery grounds, helped build the case for the Tic-Toc Golfo Corcovado Marine Park, decreed by the Chilean government in July 2022. MERI also runs the Blue BOAT Initiative with Chile's Ministry of the Environment, deploying AI-powered acoustic buoys that listen for four whale species -- blue, humpback, sei, and southern right -- to warn ships and prevent fatal strikes. The eastern South Pacific blue whale population that depends on this gulf numbers only a few hundred individuals.