The passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) strategic initiative vision has identified several transformational activities intended to resolve some core roadblocks that limit the operational use of PAM…

The passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) strategic initiative vision has identified several transformational activities intended to resolve some core roadblocks that limit the operational use of PAM across the national marine fisheries service. Included within this plan is collaborative development of a pacific-wide initiative to implement PAM glider surveys in the pacific ocean. This research-to-operations plan would align their efforts with the uncrewed systems strategic initiative and would also serve to inform national strategies for PAM glider operations into the future. We will use ocean gliders for passive acoustic monitoring of marine mammals in southern california and hawaii. In california, we will fly four gliders for a period of approximately two months; they will traverse a trackline of about 1200 KM length, recording ocean sound as they go. We will then recover them, retrieve the data, and analyze the data for sounds of cetaceans (beaked whales, sperm whales, dolphins, porpoises, and baleen whales like blue, FIN, and humpback whales). We will contribute this information to a larger project called pacmapps, which is mapping the occurrence of cetaceans in pacific waters off the US west coast. We will also transition technology to NOAA, enabling IT in the future to use gliders for passive acoustic monitoring.