User:Seacucumberqueue/draft article on continental shelves

Pacific Ocean Shelf Tracking Project (POST), hosted by the Vancouver Aquarium, Canada, is a field project of the Census of Marine Life designed to develop and promote the application of new electronic tagging technology to the study of marine animal movement along the west coast of North America. Using a system of acoustic transmitters and a series of receivers, or hydrophones, across the continental shelf, the POST project is able to conduct the long-term monitoring of marine animals through fresh- and saltwater while collecting data that contributes to the conservation and stewardship of commercially and biologically important marine resources.

Beginning in 2006, permanent "listening lines" were installed off the West Coast of the United States in a region spanning over 1,500km. This array has since continued to expand to cover over 3,000km of the Pacific Coast of North America. Currently, POST's infrastructure collects valuable data from more than 400 receivers, giving scientists new insight into the movement of marine animals. To date, 18 anadromous species have been tracked using POST. Data collection has contributed to the elucidation of the 2,500km journey of juvenille salmon, from the headwaters of the Columbia River to the waters off Southeast Alaska, as well as the discovery of threatened, green sturgeon migration.

POST’s long-term goal is to operate a series of lines of acoustic receivers from the Baja Peninsula to the Bering Sea.