This month’s cover features a sperm whale in the deep azure waters of the Indian Ocean. There are many regions of the open ocean that have sparse survey coverage and for some species, such as sperm whales, there are few data on their distribution and habitat preferences. This lack of data hinders our ability to designate marine protected areas and manage the multiple threats from human activities. To address this knowledge gap, passive acoustic surveys on platforms of opportunity are key in generating data on cetaceans in remote regions. These surveys yield large amounts of data, the analysis of which is time consuming and can account for a substantial proportion of the survey budget. Semi-automatic processes enable the bulk of processing to be conducted automatically while allowing analyst time to be reserved for validating and correcting detections and classifications. In this issue, Webber et al. provide a streamlined method for analysing acoustic datasets so that such large-scale surveys can be more affordable, and therefore more accessible in future. Image credit: ©Greenpeace / Maarten van Rouveroy.