The passive acoustic monitoring of cetaceans is a research method that can provide unique information on the animal’s behaviour since the animals can be studied at great depths and at a long-range without interference. Nevertheless, the real-time data collection, transfer, and analysis using these techniques are difficult to implement and maintain. In this paper, “Real-Time Continuous Acoustic Monitoring of Marine Mammals in the Mediterranean Sea”, a review of several experiments that have used the approach is provided.
The study of cetaceans through real-time passive acoustic monitoring methods is a prospect that will have further developments in the years to come. In addition to the obvious advantages of passive monitoring (e.g., no interference with animal behaviour, long-range, and underwater tracking), the continuous transmission of signals maximises the duty cycle of the device (important to have a consistent sample for scientific analysis), while the possibility to analyse data in real-time gives the opportunity of interference avoidances between animals and human activities.
