Salmon cages and blue whales
The Gulf of Corcovado, the body of water uniting the country’s two principal salmon farming regions (Regions X and XI) has also become a very popular migration area for blue whales. According to news published from the IPS, scientists have confirmed numerous sightings of blue whales with their young along the island of Chiloé and the Gulf of Corcovado since 1999. Five months out of the year (February thru June) these whales arrive to this region to feed on krill. This discovery contradicts the traditional assumption that the blue whale
(Balaenoptera musculus) migrates in the summer towards the poles, and in the winter towards the equator to give birth and mate. Chile’s national environment council, CONAMA, backed internationally by the Global Environment Fund (GEF) drafted a technical proposal in 2003 to turn the zone into a Protected Maritime and Coastal Area of Multiple Use. Dr. Rodrigo Hucke-Gaete, general director the Blue Whale Center, a NGO affiliated with Chile’s branch of World Wildlife Fund states, "One can declare a wider marine and coastal area as protected, by combining protection of the ecosystem and the productive activities carried out there," In 2004 and 2005 Hucke-Gaete’s team realized a series of "socialization workshops" to inform the public about the proposal, with the participation from CONAMA, local authorities, tourism agents and salmon producers.
The publication Visión Acuícola asked Adolfo Alvial, the director of INTESAL, the Salmon Technical Institute of SalmonChile what he thought of the governmental proposal. “We have manifested that the initiative is fundamentally good and the [salmon] industry is in total agreement with its noble intentions, but a Protected Maritime and Coastal Area of Multiple Use needs regulation and a delimitation based on scientific information. The proposal has yet to specifically inform what the multiple uses will be and the real limits the area will have.”
