The Development of the Pacific Ocean Shelf Tracking Project within the Decade Long Census of Marine Life

The Pacific Ocean Shelf Tracking (POST) project was established as one of the 17 projects of the decade-long Census of Marine Life. Its initial purpose was to improve our understanding of the distribution and life history of salmon on the continental shelf. POST was made possible by developments in acoustic technology which resulted in miniaturization of acoustic tags along with the creation of passive acoustic receivers which can be deployed in ‘listening curtains’ along the seafloor. The development of receivers with an acoustic modem has greatly facilitated the practicality of deploying marine lines, as data can now be uploaded to ship remotely. The POST array, which now spans over 3,000 km from California, through British Columbia, to Alaska, is composed of over 400 receivers in 10 ocean lines and strategic regions within rivers. The POST array and the associated database serve as a research tool for answering critical questions on ecology and marine resource management. Valuable data has been collected on salmonids and other marine species, and the combination of POST technology with other molecular and physiological tools is already revealing important clues in mortality and migration behaviours. POST has created a proof-of-concept, continentalscale marine tracking array and has served as a valuable pilot project despite the fact that it didn’t realize its full potential envisioned at the beginning of the Census of Marine Life. POST has however served as a flagship model for developing large scale arrays in other regions of the world through the international Ocean Tracking Network.