Protecting Blue Corridors

Protecting Blue Corridors is an initiative of WWF with a group of marine mammal research partners, among them Oregon State University, the Center for Coastal Studies, the University of Southampton, UC Santa Cruz, the University of Washington, MarEcoTel, the Tethys Research Institute and the University of Auckland. Its website, launched in June 2025, maps the ocean habitats whales use and the migratory routes that join them, which the initiative calls blue corridors.

The map draws on pooled satellite telemetry: the home page cites 2051 satellite tags, about 3.75 million kilometres of analysed whale tracks over three decades, and more than fifty collaborators. A sources page credits each contributed dataset by species, region, track count, institution and citation, covering about fourteen species groups including blue, fin, humpback, sperm, southern right, bowhead, gray and Bryde's whales, narwhal and orca. Alongside the tracks sit layers for marine protected areas, Important Marine Mammal Areas, Key Biodiversity Areas, exclusive economic zones, fishing effort, ship traffic, underwater noise, pollution and offshore oil and gas.

The site is free to browse and has sections for species, threats, protections and conservation action. It publishes a recommended citation for the dataset (Palacios et al., 2026) and points to the 2022 Protecting Blue Corridors report (Johnson et al.). No reuse licence is stated on the pages read; the tracks shown sample tagged animals and study periods rather than whole populations.