Repository of acoustic data collected by fishing vessels along CCAMLR nominated transects

The Scientific Committee endorsed the recommendation by WG-ASAM to have the Secretariat create a central repository for acoustic data collected by fishing vessels along nominated transects (SC-CAMLR-40 paragraph 2.10). We provide an overview of the raw acoustic data collected by fishing vessels currently available from the Secretariat and describe how these data are stored. Following the request by WG-ASAM-2021 paragraph 4.7 to include additional metadata in the repository, we invite WG-ASAM to review whether reporting of additional metadata attributes would be beneficial and hence to modify the instruction manual for the collection of fishing-vessel-based acoustic data (SC-CAMLR XXXIV, Annex 4, Appendix D) accordingly. We further request endorsement from WG-ASAM to update the CCAMLR website to allow acoustic instrument attributes to be provided or updated during the submission of fishery notifications, and to review the proposed attributes for this purpose.