Odontocete studies on the Pacific Missile Range Facility in February 2020

During the survey, the Marine Mammal Monitoring on Navy Ranges (M3R) system was used both to direct the research vessel to potential high-priority species and to inform the research vessel when only low-priority species were detected on the range, allowing it to survey off the range and thus increase overall encounter rates with high-priority species. [...] For two of the three sightings of the hybrid and melon-headed whale, the individuals were not noted at the time of the encounters but were only recognized from later analysis of photographs. [...] The majority of the SWTR hydrophones and some of the BARSTUR (along the southern and southwestern part of BARSTUR) and BSURE hydrophones are no longer functional, reducing the available data for cetacean detections in nearshore areas and on the southern part of the range. [...] Behavior data and GPS locations were only collected up to 3 days past the scheduled end of the SCC, to maximize throughput of both location and behavior data during the period of interest (i.e., before, during, and after the SCC). [...] Prior to the field effort, satellite passes were predicted using the Argos website to determine the best hours of the day for transmissions given satellite overpasses for the approximately 2-month period starting at the beginning of the deployment period and location.