NOAA Fisheries Awards More than $1 million to Prevent Marine Mammal Stranding

NOAA's Fisheries Division awarded than $1 million in grants to partner organizations to assist in responding to and rehabilitating stranded marine mammals.

The grants, in amounts between $67,900 and $100,000, were disbursed in 10 states around the US coast.

The federal funds, administered through the John H. Prescott Marine Mammal Rescue Assistance Grant Program, were distributed to universities, non-profits organizations and state agencies that are members of the National Marine Mammal Stranding Network. The grants will in part enable the groups to participate in marine mammal stranding response.

Friday a Marine Mammal Stranding Network affiliate in Alaska freed a humpback whale that became entangled in a mess of gillnet. Crews spent a week disentangling the whale, which had been stranded for at least two weeks.

"The Prescott grant program helps support our stranding network partners and their life-saving rescue work to help provide humane care to whales, dolphins, seals or sea lions that are sick, injured or in peril," said Teri Rowles, NOAA Fisheries' lead marine mammal veterinarian and coordinator of the Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program. "Marine mammals are important indicator species of ocean health since they are top-level predators that eat many of the same fish that we do, and several species live in coastal areas utilized by people. When marine mammals show signs of illness, they may be signaling changes in the marine environment that might have significant implications for the overall health of our ocean ecosystems, so monitoring the health of marine mammals provides vital information on the impacts of, and to, humans."

Since the Prescott grant program's inception it has awarded nearly $42 million in 47 grants to 93 recipients in 25 states and two US territories.

Allocation of federal funds for this year's Prescott grants is as follows:

• Massachusetts, $71,518 to the International Fund for Animal Welfare
• Maine, $79,996 to the College of the Atlantic
• New York, $99,313 to the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation
• Florida, $99,996 to the Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute
• Texas, $99,778 to the Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network
• California, $80,494 to The Regents of the University of California, Santa Cruz and $99,945 to the California Academy of Sciences
• Oregon, $100,000 to Oregon State University
• Washington, $88,802 to the Cascadia Research Collective
• Alaska, $72,683 to the Seward Association for the Advancement of Marine Science and $85,992 to the North Slope Borough
• Hawaii, $67,900 to The Marine Mammal Center