Software tools for marine mammals acoustic surveys and the implementation of mitigation procedures.

Several research groups are by now developing and working with software and hardware to implement PAM services worldwide. Despite considering standardization as a fundamental requirement, extensive experimentation still has to be done. In particular, the balance between software based and operator based classification, analysis, and interpretation is critical. A software suite has been developed and is continuously updated to assist researchers in conducting acoustic monitoring in marine mammals surveys; the aim is to keep improving the detection and classification of cetacean sounds, the source localization, and the real‐time integration with visual detections into a GIS. The ultimate goal is to produce data for distribution and density estimation, and to provide a solid platform for mitigation. These tools have been developed throughout 10 years of SIRENA research cruises (NATO URC) and LDEO (Columbia Univ., NY) seismic cruises. The core of the system is the SEAPRO PAM software package that provides mul...