ABSTRACT
Information on morbidity and mortality is scarce for many wildlife populations, including marine mammals. Although efforts over the last decade have increased the knowledge of certain pathogens (i.e., morbillivirus) in marine mammals (Duignan et al., 1996), many data gaps still remain. To better understand the overall health of marine mammal populations, examinations of carcasses from a variety of sources, such as strandings, subsistence hunts, or incidental fishery by-catch, are needed. These interrelationships are best examined through multidisciplinary studies, which benefit from standardized protocols. The goals of standardized necropsy examinations are to accomplish the following:
• Determine cause of death;
• Collect basic biological data;
• Determine direct human impacts (e.g., fishery by-catch; ship strike);
• Collect data for management assessment;
• Establish baselines of health, disease, and biology;
• Understand the levels of exposure and the effects of biotoxins, chemical pollutants, pathogens, noise, and other environmental factors on health.
