Cuvier's Beaked Whale and Fin Whale Surveys at the Southern California Offshore Anti-submarine Warfare Range (SOAR)

Original provider:
Marine Ecology and Telemetry Research

Dataset credits:
Marine Ecology and Telemetry Research

Abstract:
The United States (US) Navy uses the Southern California (SOCAL) portion of
the Hawaii-Southern California Training and Testing area, a collection of
nearshore and offshore training areas that include much of the navigable
water from Santa Barbara Island, California, to northern Baja California,
Mexico, and extending several hundred miles to the west. It is among one of
the most heavily used tactical training areas in the world, and is used for a
variety of aerial, surface, and subsurface exercises. The Southern California
Offshore Range (SCORE) is a subset of complexes within SOCAL centered on
San Clemente Island and managed via the Range Operation Center (ROC) on
North Island, Coronado. It includes the Southern California Anti-submarine
Warfare Range (SOAR), a focal area for exercises involving mid-frequency
active sonar (MFAS) systems within the San Nicolas Basin.

Through its N45 Living Marine Resources (LMR) research programs, and more
recently in support of Pacific Fleet Monitoring efforts, the US Navy has funded
directed studies on cetacean occurrence on SOAR since 2006. The primary
focus of these studies is to support long-term surveys of Cuvier’s beaked
whales and fin whales using photo-identification (photo-ID) and genetics to
elucidate population size, structure, and trends, which can in turn provide a
particularly robust basis for assessing population-level impacts of Navy
training. Data is collected on all species encountered in this region as part of
the monitoring program.