ABSTRACT
Health assessments of pinnipeds are conducted for diagnostic evaluation of stranded individuals, for routine examinations of animals in display facilities, for establishment of a baseline, or for monitoring the health of free-ranging populations. As such, evaluations may be conducted in a wide range of settings from boat- or field-based to a designated veterinary medical facility. A health assessment may be the primary goal in many efforts, but valuable health information can be collected opportunistically in conjunction with many research activities, and with little additional impact on the animal. Additionally, the archival of key samples from captive animals provides useful comparisons against which results from wild populations can be validated or interpreted. As changing climatic and oceanographic conditions influence the distribution of wild marine mammals, a solid foundation of baseline health data from display, rehabilitated, and wild individuals is essential for the detection of disease, ecosystem perturbations, anthropogenic impacts, and cumulative effects of multiple stressors on health. Data and specimens acquired through well-designed sampling protocols are invaluable to the investigation of unusual mortality events (see Chapter 1 ) and also prove useful as technological advancements in diagnostic testing permit new analyses on archived samples.
