Marine Mammal Monitoring on Navy Ranges (M3R) on the Southern California Offshore Range (SOAR) and the Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF)

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In 2016, corrected Cuvier’s beaked whale (Ziphius cavirostris, Zc) abundance estimates at SOAR were completed for 2010 -2014. The estimates showed no decline in abundance over this 5-year period on the instrumented Southern California Anti-Submarine Warfare Range (SOAR). In 2017, these estimates were updated with data from 2015 through September of 2017 to provide a yearly estimate from 2010 to 2017. Periods of node or in-water hardware outages in past estimates and new data were isolated. Correction factors for these periods were calculated, and revised abundance estimates were produced. As before, the data do not show a decline in abundance on SOAR over the last eight years.