The ocean is crowded with human uses, many of which also introduce underwater sound in the ocean environment. To understand if and how these underwater sound sources impact marine mammals and eventually mitigate against the potential consequences, information on distribution patterns is crucial. Passive acoustic monitoring techniques offer a versatile tool to study marine mammals, particularly in polar ocean environments where ship access is often limited and visual sighting conditions can be compromised by light availability and weather. In this talk I will provide an introduction on passive acoustic techniques, how they can be applied and what type of data they generate. Three case studies serve to illustrate how passive acoustic techniques have contributed to fundamentally improve the knowledge status on cetacean and pinniped species in Antarctic waters.