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  • Marine Mammal Contaminant Exposure and Health / Support of NMFS's Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program

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Northwest Fisheries Science Center (NWFSC) Environmental and Fisheries Sciences EFS - Environmental Chemistry

Information

Project
Marine Mammal Biomonitoring
Title
Marine Mammal Contaminant Exposure and Health / Support of NMFS's Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program
Description
Extremely high contaminant levels in many marine mammals continues to interfere with recovery and management efforts. Whenever a marine mammal is stranded or dies under suspicious circumstances, there is a need to understand whether contaminant toxicity is a contributing factor. The NMFS’s Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program (MMHSRP; Title IV) was established in 1992 and operates in support of the Recovered Protected Species goal of National Marine Fisheries Services’ (NMFS) Strategic Plan. The NWFSC serves as the NMFS lead for the biomonitoring components and quality assurance of chemical tracer analyses of marine mammals and their prey for the Program. Information generated by these components addresses deficiencies in data quality and quantity on the levels of toxic chemicals in marine mammals, refines methods and approaches for understanding linkages between exposure and specific biological effects, and improves the dissemination of the information to constituents and resource managers. We work closely with Dr. Teri Rowles, the coordinator of the MMHSRP, to prioritize activities for this program, with an emphasis on collecting chemical tracer data for marine mammal populations that occur in the California Current. The collection and dissemination of these data increase understanding of the causes of disease and mortality events and provide high quality data to assess the status and trends in contaminant accumulation by U.S. marine mammal populations.

Data Sets

no data found

Research Themes

Habitats to support sustainable fisheries and recovered populations
Healthy oceans, coastal waters, and riverine habitats provide the foundation for aquatic resources used by a diversity of species and society. Protecting marine, estuarine and freshwater ecosystems that support these species relies on science to link habitat condition/processes and the biological effects of restoration actions. The NWFSC provides the habitat science behind many management actions taken by NOAA Fisheries and other natural resource agencies to protect and recover aquatic ecosystems and living marine resources. The NWFSC also maintains a longstanding focus on toxic chemical contaminants, as a foundation for regional and national research on pollution threats to fisheries and protected resources.

Research Foci

Assess the impacts of toxic chemicals and other pollutants across biological scales, and identify pollution reduction strategies that improve habitat quality
The NWFSC has been at the forefront of marine pollution research for more than four decades, providing science support for several major events, including the Exxon Valdez oil spill, Hurricane Katrina, and the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Land-based sources of pollution are an increasingly important threat to NOAA trust resources, and NWFSC science is evolving to fill priority information gaps at the regional and national scales. This includes targeted research on major classes of contaminants (e.g., crude oil, pesticides, metals, pharmaceuticals and other chemicals of emerging concern); surveillance monitoring to assess the exposure, health and status of species in polluted habitats; exposure; monitoring to assess the success of habitat restoration efforts; and research to evaluate the effectiveness of new green infrastructure technologies. Ongoing efforts span all biological scales, from molecular mechanisms of toxicity to population and community-level responses.
Characterize the interaction of human use and habitat distribution, quantity and quality
The ability to define the state of an ecosystem requires insight into the natural processes within habitats, and how anthropogenic interactions with these processes can alter ecosystems and marine organisms. A wide diversity of human activities -- land use and water withdrawals, industrialization and dredging, fishing practices and climate change (e.g., ocean acidification) -- directly and indirectly impact critical freshwater, estuarine, and marine habitats. To best manage west coast marine, estuarine and freshwater habitats in a sustainable fashion, it is necessary to map the spatial and temporal footprint of human impacts and review their potential biological impact on each species of interest. Measurement parameters will be developed to determine the full range of human impacts using spatial data and improved habitat classification.

Keywords

Trophic position
Position of an organism in the food web, measured through diet or stable isotope analyses
baseline monitoring
characterizing existing physical, chemical, or biological processes for planning or future comparison
persistent organic pollutants
various classes of lipophilic, persistent chemical contaminants that were used as pesticides and industrial chemicals

Products

Progress Report for the Program Coordinator of the NMFS's Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program
Progress Report for the Program Coordinator of the NMFS's Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program

Taxa

None assigned

People

Denis Da Silva
Staff
Irvin Schultz
Program Manager
James Meador
Staff
Jennie Bolton
Staff
Jonelle Gates
Staff
Keri Baugh
Staff
Li-Jung Kuo
Staff
Paul Chittaro
Staff