Passive Acoustic Monitoring of Cetaceans in the Hawaii Range Complex Using Ecological Acoustic Recorders (EARs)

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A long-term passive acoustic monitoring program was initiated in 2011 by the United States Navy Pacific Fleet to investigate the occurrence of cetaceans in waters within the main Hawaiian Islands under the Hawaii Range Complex (HRC) monitoring plan. As a part of this monitoring plan, four ecological acoustic recorders (EARs) were deployed at locations around the islands of Ni‘ihau and Kaua‘i, to the west of Kaua‘i. These EARs recorded data over three deployment periods: July to December 2011, January to May 2012, and July 2012 to February 2013. They were programmed to record at a sampling rate of 80 kilohertz (kHz) with a duty cycle of 30 seconds “on” either every 5 or 10 minutes, depending on the deployment.