The Ocean Tracking Network: Strategies and infrastructure to document the movements, habitat use and survival of valued aquatic species.

Since 2008, the Ocean Tracking Network (OTN) has been developing a global system to use electronic telemetry (primarily acoustic telemetry) to document the movements, habitat use, and survival of valued aquatic species. In association with its telemetry work, the OTN has also established an experienced operational glider fleet to provide observations of environmental conditions that are linked to animal distributions and movements. To meet the needs of the science community, OTN infrastructure deployments are flexible. Equipment can either be maintained long-term at particular sites for monitoring purposes at continental scales, or cost-effectively placed for short terms at local scales to address pressing immediate questions. OTN is partnering/networking with independent operators of compatible equipment to create data systems that can exchange detections across telemetry systems. This is enabling the creation of a global network that will support nascent efforts by GOOS to enact monitoring of ecosystem/biological Essential Ocean Variables. To assist with this, OTN is a founding member of the developing Canadian Integrated Ocean Observing System (CIOOS). As a Canadian National Science Facility (Canada Foundation for Innovation Major Sciences Initiative) OTN infrastructure is receiving sustained federal financial support. Researchers, however, are currently supported by a patchwork of funding, none of which is specially tied to working with the OTN infrastructure. This poses a challenge for sustaining future operations. To increase its utility, OTN regularly reaches out to other groups of researchers working in other domains to ensure its field deployments and data are used to maximum benefit.