Abstract

Although the importance of high quality data from stranded marine mammals is increasing the resources available to train personnel to collect these data and offer high quality, species specific care for these animals is shrinking. Furthermore, there is inherent difficulty in training personnel to safely and efficiently respond to events that are either infrequent or regionally centered, such as emerging diseases, natural disasters, oil spills, and mass stranding events. Here we present two new resources which aim to improve training for marine mammal strandings and for oil spill response readiness through high quality, interactive, and collaborative online training materials. The Marine Mammal Anatomy and Pathology Library (MMAPL) (www.mmapl.ucsc.edu) and The Inner Otter (www.TheInnerOtter.ucsc.edu; VIN editor: The link could not be accessed as of 3/27/2013.) are websites developed to bring the tremendous wealth of veterinary, pathology, oil spill, and human health expertise from across the country into easy reach of first responders, volunteers, researchers, students, and other field personnel responding to marine mammals. MMAPL, funded by the Prescott Grant Program, is a project that builds upon the previously developed Visible Sea Lion website hosted at U.C. Santa Cruz. In addition to the sea lion content previously developed, MMAPL adds normal harbor porpoise anatomy into an up-to-date, user friendly web interface which is fully expandable, searchable, and features the ability for user collaboration. We have also added a top 10 list of emerging diseases including high quality images of the gross and histological presentation of the disease, contact information for labs that specialize in the disease, sample collection and storage instructions, and importantly, human safety protocols. The Inner Otter is an Oiled Wildlife Care Network (OWCN) funded project with the main objective of training first responders, husbandry personnel, and veterinarians to care for oiled sea otters. The Inner Otter features content ranging from sea otter capture techniques to proper washing protocols to blood chemistry interpretation. A high quality annotated image gallery of normal sea otter anatomy and common pathologies provide users a reference for a species with which many veterinary and field personnel may not have prior direct experience. The Inner Otter was also developed with multiple password protected interactive training modules specifically designed to train responders in capture and intake procedures, detailed oiled otter washing protocols, and interactive veterinary diagnostics. Each of these websites is focused on providing users with an image and video rich, interactive experience along with expert annotation of all content. Furthermore, once developed, these resources require minimal overhead to maintain and are able to function as a clearing house for much of the institutional, on-the-ground knowledge that may not make it to formal publication. Finally, real time monitoring of emerging trends with potentially important implications for human health (e.g., Cryptococcus gattii, Brucella, influenza, oil spills, mass strandings, etc.) make collaboration between stranding networks, field personnel, regional coordinators, and others critically important. Both MMAPL and The Inner Otter provide a flexible, easy to use, free tool for facilitating this collaboration.

Acknowledgements

Both MMAPL and The Inner Otter are highly collaborative projects. For MMAPL we wish to thank The Marine Mammal Center, California Academy of Sciences, The Santa Barbara Natural History Museum, The California Department of Fish and Game Marine Wildlife Veterinary Care and Research Center, and The University of Illinois Zoo Pathology Program. For The Inner Otter we wish to thank The Oiled Wildlife Care Network, The Monterey Bay Aquarium, The Marine Mammal Center, United States Geological Survey, and U.C. Davis Wildlife Health Center. MMAPL was funded by Prescott Marine Mammal Stranding Grant NA12NMF4390133. The Inner Otter was funded by a 2011–2012 Oiled Wildlife Care Network grant.

* Presenting author