In 1992, the Marine Mammal Protection Act established the Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program (Title IV) which operates in support of the Recovered Protected Species goal of NMFS’s Strategic Plan. The Northwest Fisheries Science Center (NWFSC) is the NMFS lead for the biomonitoring components and quality assurance of chemical analyses for the MMHSRP. Information generated by this activity addresses deficiencies in data quality and quantity on the levels of toxic chemical contaminants in marine mammals and their prey, refines methods and approaches for understanding linkages between exposure and specific biological effects and measures, and improves the dissemination of the information to constituents and resource managers. Furthermore, these data will provide a measure of the quality of marine mammal habitats.

Various analytical methods developed at the NWFSC will be used for the following marine mammal projects: integrated assessment studies of contaminants and other chemical tracers to assess feeding ecology or population health; monitoring of contaminants from stranded animals in support of studies and from species for which few data exist; continued investigations of potential relationships between contaminant exposure and population effects; participation in Interlaboratory Comparison Exercises conducted by National Institute of Standards and Technology and other similar entities comparing analytical results for chemical tracers; and development of quality control materials and quality assurance criteria for new analytical methods as they are developed as part of our Quality Assurance Program. The results of the chemical tracer analyses will be summarized in a report that will be sent to the Office of Protected Resources by the 4th quarter of FY18. Concentrations of POPs, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and their metabolites, total lipid and lipid profiles, fatty acids, and stable isotopes in samples derived from marine mammal biopsies and necropsies.