In the Southwest Indian Ocean, researchers are using passive acoustic monitoring to track the presence and seasonal movements of Antarctic blue whales, Southwest Indian Ocean pygmy blue whales, fin whales and Antarctic minke whales in offshore habitat off Madagascar’s west coast. This work is an extension of a previous research program to determine whether the area serves as a migratory corridor and/or seasonal breeding habitat for each species. 

This program is assessing the occurrence of other key species, such as humpback whales and Omura’s whales. Receivers deployed by the Ocean Tracking Network (OTN) and the Acoustic Array Tracking Platform (ATAP) are also leveraging existing efforts to monitor tagged marine vertebrates—namely tiger and bull sharks.