Overview

The Pacific Islands Region Acoustic Telemetry (PIRAT) Network is a collaboration of researchers using acoustic telemetry to track aquatic animals in the Pacific Islands region. PIRAT seeks to support acoustic telemetry studies and provides a cloud-based system for researchers to quality control and archive their data. It also facilitates data sharing with international networks such as the Ocean Tracking Network (OTN) and the Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS).

While much of the data generated and handled by PacIOOS expands our understanding of the coastal and ocean environment itself, the PIRAT Network is part of PacIOOS’ effort to better understand and disseminate information about the marine life inhabiting our oceans. PIRAT supports acoustic telemetry users in the Pacific, working to connect and expand marine life observation systems across the region, and furthering PacIOOS’ mission to centralize and make ocean data more accessible.

For more information, please visit https://piratnetwork.org .

Field photos of example acoustic telemetry research campaigns whose data are archived at PIRAT.

Publication Date: March 14, 2025
Last Updated: April 11, 2025
Version: 1.01
Update History: showhide

Projects

The Pacific Islands Region Acoustic Telemetry (PIRAT) Network is partnered with the Ocean Tracking Network (OTN) to identify long-range movements of tagged animals among other acoustic telemetry nodes on a global scale. All datasets contributed to PIRAT can also be submitted (upon request by the principal investigator) to the Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS), a global open-data platform for marine biological observations. Use the map and table below to explore projects within the PIRAT Network.

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Marker Clustering

When there are too many projects to display concurrently in a given location, the following icons will indicate the number of projects clustered in that general area:

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Clicking on one of the above cluster icons will zoom into that area of the map for closer inspection.

Marker Icons

Otherwise, the following map marker will be displayed at the location of each project. NOTE: This is the centroid of the project study region and may appear on land when the project encompasses the surrounding ocean:

When there are multiple projects at the same location, the highlighted marker shown below will be displayed. Clicking on the highlighted marker will “spiderfy” into the multiple markers at that location. This will display them in a fan-like appearance around the map location, as the following example illustrates:

Info Windows

Click on any marker to produce a pop-up window with further details about that project. This will include the project ID code, short name, and a link to view further project details. Additional map utilities are also provided, such as outlining a bounding box of the project’s spatial extent:

Clicking on “View details below…” in the pop-up window will take you to the project’s info panel in the table below the map where you can find an abstract, contacts, and other important details.

Search Projects

You can search and filter the available projects by using the search box beneath the map:

This filters the displayed map markers and table rows to projects with one or more attributes containing the search criterion, including project code, project name, abstract, species, contacts, institutions, country, state, status, as well as start and end dates.

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Acknowledgements

The U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) Animal Telemetry Network (ATN) and the Ocean Tracking Network (OTN) provide valuable expertise for maintaining our network and database, while numerous other institutions below have contributed datasets to our database.