The Ocean Tracking Network: A global partnership uses electronic tagging technologies to track the movements of aquatic animals, answer science questions, stimulate new technology development and assist with sustainable development of the ocean

Abstract

The Ocean Tracking Network (OTN) is a global research and technology development platform headquartered at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. OTN uses electronic telemetry to document the local-to-global movements and survival of aquatic animals, and to link them to environmental correlates. OTN works with various tracking methods including satellite and data storage tag systems, but its dominant focus is acoustic telemetry. Results from OTN studies inform conservation, management and policy for aquatic biological resources. OTN is built on global partnerships for the sharing of equipment and data. The OTN has stimulated technological development in telemetry by bringing researchers with needs for new capabilities together with manufacturers to generate, test, and operationalize new technologies. This has included pioneering work into the use of marine autonomous vehicles (Slocum electric gliders, and a Liquid Robotics Wave Glider) in animal telemetry research. Similarly, OTN scientists worked with the Sea Mammal Research Unit to pioneer the placement of mobile acoustic receiver units on grey seals, linked via Bluetooth to a satellite transmitter/receiver. This provided receiver coverage in areas occupied by the seals during their typically extensive migrations, reported any detections the sealborne receivers had in near-real time, and allowed for the examination of behavioral interactions among the seals as well as between seals and other tagged species. OTN and its researchers have also partnered with industry to use OTN's infrastructure to help provide answers to questions posed to industry by regulators prior to authorizing their proposed developments of the ocean. These studies have included documenting how animals are affected by underwater electrical transmission lines, or aquaculture infrastructure