Publication Date:
2022-05-25
Description:
Author Posting. © Society for Marine Mammalogy, 2007. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of John Wiley & Sons for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Marine Mammal Science 23 (2007): 731-750, doi:10.1111/j.1748-7692.2007.00146.x.
Description:
Rehabilitation of stranded marine mammals elicits polarized attitudes: initially
done alongside display collections, but release of rehabilitated animals has become more
common. Justifications include animal welfare, management of beach use conflict,
research, conservation, and public education. Rehabilitation cost and risks have been
identified which vary in degree supported by data rather than perception. These include
conflict with fisheries for resources, ignorance of recipient population ecology, poor
understanding of long term survival, support of the genetically not-so-fit, introduction of
novel or antibiotic resistant pathogens, harm to human health and cost. Thus facilities
must balance their welfare appeal against public education, habitat restoration, human
impact reduction, and other conservation activities. Benefits to rehabilitating marine
mammals are the opportunity to support the welfare of disabled animals and to publish
good science and so advance our understanding of wild populations. In specific cases, the
status of a population may make conservation the main reason for rehabilitation. These
three reasons for rehabilitation lead to contrasting, and sometimes conflicting,
management needs. We therefore outline a decision tree for rehabilitation managers using
criteria for each management decision, based on welfare, logistics, conservation, research
and funding to define limits on the number of animals released to the wild.
Keywords:
Rehabilitation
;
Release
;
Conservation
;
Education
;
Animal welfare
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Preprint
Format:
application/pdf
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