Sooner or later, the food requirements of nine billion people with increasing appetites for seafood must be addressed. Although aquaculture may supply the majority of the global ‘seafood’, most aquaculture is fed meal from wild caught fish, such as sardine and anchovy. To estimate the distributions and abundance of these and other small fish off the west coast, NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center routinely conducts “acoustic-trawl” surveys. David Demer will briefly describe the vessels, instrumentation and methods that are used to conduct these surveys, and provide a virtual tour of the world-class facilities in La Jolla that are used to develop the next generation of autonomous, ocean-sampling technologies. Join us to learn more about this exciting technology and be part of a discussion about possible ethical challenges.