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Data policy implications arising from the Ocean Tracking Network’s recentadoption of the Pacific Ocean Shelf Tracking projectRobert Branton 1 & John Payne 21 Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canadabob.branton@dal.ca2 Blue Dot Research, Seattle, USAjcpayne@uw.eduAbstractThe Ocean Tracking Network headquartered at Dalhousie University in Halifax Canada has assumed operationalresponsibility for three major North East Pacific coastal acoustic receiver lines (Strait of Juan de Fuca, NorthernStrait of Georgia and Queen Charlotte Strait) and for all tracking data and metadata collected by the former Censusof Marine Life’s Pacific Ocean Shelf Tracking (POST) project. In addition the Ocean Tracking Network has deployeda new receiver line at the mouth of Prince William Sound. All North East Pacific tracking data so far receivedby the Ocean Tracking Network are now organized into a standalone relational database within its global datawarehouse. In addition to introducing this valuable new online data resource we also give an overview of the relevantdata policy issues.IntroductionThe Ocean Tracking Network (OTN) began operation in 2008 as a Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) projectheadquartered at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, enabling physical oceanographers and animal trackerson a global scale to improve: understanding of biology and behavior of migrating marine life, ocean physicsmodeling, impact of ocean climate, resource management, and international social and legal frameworks. As ofMarch 2013, OTN has acquired 34 million records including 21 million detections on 30 thousand animals from 73institutions in 14 countries. Included are 8 million records acquired from the Pacific Ocean Shelf Tracking projectafter it ceased operations in 2012. OTN is currently funded to run until 2017.Table 1. Detections (thousands) by Ocean Region and type of detection.AnimalMysteryARCTIC 253 30E INDIAN 5 2GREAT LAKES 4,378 3,327NE ATLANTIC 1,010 1,796NE PACIFIC 4,033 4,520NW ATLANTIC 11,593 1,976W INDIAN 13total 21,272 11,667OTN supports both satellite and acoustic telemetry tag data. Acoustic telemetry receivers and associated instrumentsare periodically recovered and/or offloaded via acoustic modems to research vessels and then loaded to centraldatabases. Oceanographic variables are measured by sensors on tagged animals and other oceanographic instrumentsand then transmitted to satellites in space, lines of receivers on the ocean floor or to autonomous underwatervehicles such as gliders. Data and metadata in the OTN data warehouse are managed with open source web contentand relational data base systems (Linux, PostgreSQL, PostGIS, R) and accessed using a variety of common GISprotocols (Geoserver, OpenDAP). Data management challenges include: tags and receivers are often owned andoperated by different institutions and individuals; tag specification and release metadata if not reported to OTNresult in data records that cannot be assigned to a species or scientist (mystery tags); and TagIDs are not guaranteedto be unique (ambiguous).19