Unusual Mortality Events (UME) Flashcards
Define a stranded animal
- Having run aground
- Any creature left in a helpless position
Define a “strand”
Any beach or land bordering a body of water
Define a UME
May involve a few animals dying under unusual circumstances, or death on a large scale (ex: die-off)
What is a die off
- Large scale death of marine animals
- Can occur over weeks / months
- Take place over a broad geographic range
- Involve species that are difficult to study
What are some causes of die offs?
- Viral disease
- Bacterial disease
- Parasitic infection
- Prey depletion
- Exposure to algal toxins
- Climactic abnormalities
Are UME’s synonymous to mass strandings?
- NO
- A mass stranding is completely different!
What is a response team and what are they tasked with?
- The response team is tasked with…
- Determining the cause of the event
- Assessing impacts on the population
- Assessing implications for ecosystem health and addressing public health concerns
- Communicating / cooperating with other agencies
What is the criteria for declaring a UME?
- Requires knowledge of normal regional stranding patterns
- Local operation centers must alert the responsible agency (typically NOAA) that something unusual might be occurring
Is it better to wait until the last minute to declare a UME or act fast and make an incorrect declaration?
- Act ASAP
- It is easier to call off action than to launch a response when something like a die-off is well underway
- Ex: oil spills - intervention is often necessary before casualties have occurred
Where must local operations centers report potential UME’s
- NMFS
- FWS
Who do agencies consult when declaring a UME?
The Working Group on Marine Mammal Unusual Mortality Events (WGMMUME)
What is the role of WGMMUME?
- Developed by NMFS to better inform existing stranding networks in the U.S
- Advises NMFS and FWS on whether the event should be declared unusual
- Serves in an advisory capacity once an event has been declared
- NMFS and FWS will appoint a (federal) on-site coordinator
What is the ICS system?
- Originally developed for use by fire departments
- Allows personnel from various agencies to join forces on site with established roles and lines of authority
- A single incident commander is responsible for overseeing the entire event including activities of individual site coordinators
What are the roles under the incident commander?
- Media coordinator
- Health and safety officer
- Site coordinator (technical specialists, rescuers)
- Equipment coordinator
- Personnel coordinator
What is the National Marine Mammal Tissue Bank
Allows marine mammals tissue samples to be stored and the data to be collected and shared among agencies
How do we recognize an UME?
- Increase in the number / frequency of strandings as compared to years past
- Animals are stranding at an unusual time of year
- Increase in strandings in a localized area / geographic range
- Species, age, sex composition of stranded animal is different from what is normally observed in the area
- Animals exhibit similar / unusual pathologic findings, behavior patterns, clinical signs or general physical conditions
- Significant morbidity, mortality or stranding is observed in species
- Morbidity is observed concurrent with continual decline of a marine mammal population
Why do we designate events as UME’s?
- Authorization of federal investigations
- Minimizes deaths
- Determine event causes
- Determine effects of the event on the population
- Identify the role of environmental parameters in the event
What are the requirements for a large stranding event?
- Collaboration
- Laboratories with expertise in microbiology, pathology, biotoxin analysis etc
- Stranding network members and volunteers
- Media personnel
- Biologists / personnel with expertise in life history, ecology, clinical medicine etc.
Why is it important to give accurate information to the media?
If you don’t, they will put out false information
What steps are taken to determine the cause of a UME?
- Collection and analysis of vast amounts of data samples
- Meticulous record keeping
- Analysis by qualified laboritories
How is population information obtained?
- Requires beach and vessel surveys to locate carcasses and identify trends
- Could require years of periodic surveys to identify long term effects
How can we investigate the role of ecosystem health?
- Water and sediment samples
- Tissue samples
- Analysis of weather related oceanographic patterns (weeks to months)
What is the priority when determining impacts of a UME on public health?
Determining if there is a potential transmissible disease (the likelihood of this is low BUT anyone handling live or dead animals that have stranded from unknown causes are at risk and must take precaution)
What are two currently active UME’s in NY?
- North Atlantic Right Whale (since 2017)
- Humpback Whale (since 2016/ specifically for the Atlantic Coast)
