The Marine Mammal Stranding Center's Statement on Recent Whale Deaths

As our community continues to grapple with the recent surge in whale strandings, many of you have reached out with questions regarding how our work is funded and our role in the ongoing investigation.

The Marine Mammal Stranding Center has NOT accepted any funding from the wind energy companies.

As a non-profit organization, the Marine Mammal Stranding Center is funded by donations, fundraisers, grants, and retail gift shop sales. As with all non-profits, our financials are public record. To review our organization’s most recent IRS 990, you may check the GuideStar website using the button below:
MMSC's GuideStar Profile

In addition, visitors may view the full 53-page hard copy of our financial reports by visiting our Sea Life Museum on Saturdays 10am-2pm.

As a member of the Greater Atlantic Marine Mammal Stranding Network, we are on the front lines working together with our fellow network members to help find the answers. The work that we perform is the first step in many that will bring us closer to understanding why we are seeing so many whale strandings along the East Coast. Large whale necropsies can take a day or more to complete. The work is grueling and dangerous, requiring a large team of people, each with a specific task, working together as safely and efficiently as possible to complete the examination. When a large whale washes ashore in the Northeast region, oftentimes staff from other stranding organizations will travel in from out of state to assist with the efforts. We are grateful to our fellow stranding network members who have helped support our staff by assisting our team with the recent necropsies, as these large-scale stranding events take dozens of people to facilitate.

Stranding organizations such as ourselves perform the necropsies and collect any samples that are viable based on the condition of the carcass. Once we have collected the samples, they are sent to the laboratory pathologists who are responsible for processing and analyzing. When the pathologists have completed their work, the scientists who are tasked with researching the ongoing Unusual Mortality Event (UME) interpret the findings.

This is not the first UME investigation that the Marine Mammal Stranding Center has been involved with. In the summer of 1987, hundreds of bottlenose dolphins washed ashore in New Jersey, as well as along the rest of the East Coast. After several months of necropsies and sample collection, the cause was found to be a virus that had spread through the population. A similar event occurred in the summer of 2012, which was again found to be a virus.

In an effort to be transparent with our followers, MMSC has shared the initial findings of the recent whale necropsies on our website and social media accounts. In all cases, including those animals in which evidence of vessel strike was found, the pathology results are still pending. This means that the final cause of death has not yet been determined for these whales.

To assign blame before the scientific data is analyzed and interpreted would be premature and could dilute our impact on championing changes on behalf of these animals in the future. The Marine Mammal Stranding Center is approaching this investigation in a non-biased manner.

We are asking for patience as our staff is entirely focused on performing our work in the most professional and scientific manner. The death of these majestic whales is a sad event that has become too frequent lately. Our small but mighty team has been stretched thin with 12-hour days, but we are continuing to work to help find answers about why these whales are dying. We appreciate the community’s support as they show us the same compassion that we all share for the animals.

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