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Behind the doors of a stranding action team

We often cover the stories of stranded marine mammals, reporting what necropsies revealed about the animal’s condition and what we can hence deduce for the animal’s cause of death. The necessity of taking samples for further research is often highlighted as well. But where and how exactly does this research happen?


The University of Hawai’i Marine Mammal Stranding Lab is one of those teams. Lab director Kristi West states their “lab’s role is to be the science providers behind the information we need to best manage marine mammal populations”. As the only entity in Hawai’i authorized by the NOAA to research the cause of death in marine mammals, their main task is to investigate those deaths and to help understand conservation threats better.


They are part of the team of first respondents and therefore among the first to arrive at the reported scene, coordinating the rescue and taking samples. Through necropsies and autopsies, human impacts on the animal such as entanglement, marine debris ingestion and acoustic trauma are studied extensively in the lab. Further, diseases are being recorded and identified. In a unique project in the Pacific Ocean area, tissue is being processed and archived.


While the lab is based on several different kinds of research, the involvement of students – from undergrads to PhDs – is critical in tackling all the work, at the same time offering them invaluable hands-on experience and networking possibilities. Further collaboration exists with the NOAA, its Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center and community volunteers. They also work closely with federal and state partners.


Though the “work that [they] do takes an army”, West states that the “conservation efforts for Hawai’i marine mammals are an ideal representation of what we really need to do to preserve our oceans and the habitat that these animals depend on”.

The Marine Mammal Stranding Lab of the University of Hawai’i retraces the causes of death of stranded marine mammals. Here, by sorting through the contents of a stranded pilot whale. (Photo credit: Marine Mammal Stranding Lab)

An article on their lab and more of their work can be found here: https://www.hawaii.edu/news/2019/11/14/whale-dolphin-strandings-response-team/

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