By Lauren McDowell, Community Outreach Manager for SSC’s Marine Mammal Rescue; Hannah Appiah-Madson, Collections Manager; and Dan Distel, Director for Ocean Genome Legacy
The Ocean Genome Legacy Center (OGL) of Northeastern University and The Seacoast Science Center (SSC) Marine Mammal Rescue are excited to announce a new partnership aimed at enhancing our understanding of the biology of marine mammals.
OGL is a nonprofit marine research laboratory and biological specimen repository dedicated to exploring and preserving the wealth of information contained in the DNA of marine organisms and training the next generation of marine scientists.
SSC is a nonprofit organization dedicated to marine science education, situated in Odiorne Point State Park in Rye, New Hampshire. Alongside its educational initiatives, the Center also staffs and operates a Marine Mammal Rescue program that provides 24/7 assistance for marine mammal strandings along the coasts of New Hampshire and northeastern Massachusetts. The Center’s Rescue Team monitors and responds to marine mammals that haul out and become stranded on shore due to sickness, injury, and other causes. To learn more about environmental and human impacts on marine mammal health, the team collects data on stranded animals and takes samples from those who are deceased.
Through this partnership, samples collected by the SSC team will be submitted to the OGL repository and become accessible to researchers worldwide to promote the health of these vital and charismatic marine creatures and advance conservation efforts.
OGL collection kit (Left) and sample collected by the SSC MMR team (Right).
Although this partnership has only just begun, we have already collected samples and data from a wide diversity of marine mammal species including harbor seal (Phoca vitulina), humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae), hooded seal (Cystophora cristata), common dolphin (Delphinus delphis), and harp seal (Pagophilus groenlandicus). We hope to collect more samples as the season continues and look forward to the insight we’ll gain from our partnership.
Stay tuned to our social feeds, as well as our blog, for more updates on our partnership!