Expert Advisory Panel on Strandings

Employed within IWC Secretariat, England, Karen coordinates the Strandings Initiative and convenes the Strandings Expert Panel. Karen is further employed as Associate Professor of Marine Biology at Massey University, New Zealand, where she is Research Director of the Coastal-Marine Research Group and Associate Investigator of the New Zealand Animal Welfare Science and Bioethics Centre. Her research interests intersect the fields of marine mammal biology, ecology and behaviour. As a Royal Society of New Zealand Rutherford Discovery Fellow (2019-2023), her current research investigates the conservation-welfare nexus at whale mass strandings. Karen holds a PhD in Zoology (2008), MSc in Marine & Fisheries Science (1998) and BSc Hons in Marine Biology (1998).

Sandro is a veterinary pathologist involved in the National Stranding Network in Italy. Since 2010, he has co-ordinated the definition of national guidelines for the intervention and rehabilitation of cetaceans stranded alive, and, as part of Cetaceans Strandings Emergency Response Team, he has supported and supervised most of the interventions on behalf of stranded animals. He has served as a member of the International Whaling Commission’s Scientific Committee for several years, on the Scientific Committee of the Agreement on the Conservation of Cetaceans in the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and contiguous Atlantic area (ACCOBAMS) to follow live and mass strandings procedures, and as a consultant to the Ministry of Health and Environment. Sandro received his PhD in Veterinary Public Health (2006) and currently lectures in animal pathology and forensic at the Veterinary School of University of Padova, co-ordinating the post-graduate Masters in Conservation Medicine of Aquatic Animals.

Nantarika has been an Associate Professor of the Aquatic Animal Medicine Unit, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, since 1989. She holds a DVM from Chulalongkorn University, MSc in Forensic Science from The Thai Royal Police Academy, PhD in Marine Science (Immunotoxicology) from Virginia Institute of Marine Science, The College of William and Mary and LL.B from Ramkhamhaeng University. Nantarika currently serves as Director of the Veterinary Medical Aquatic Animal Research Center within the Faculty of Veterinary Science at Chulalongkorn University.

Rob is the Project Manager of the UK Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (CSIP) and has been in this role since 2006. The CSIP is a collaborative research programme responsible for the investigation of UK stranded cetaceans, marine turtles and some elasmobranch species under contract to the UK government. Rob co-ordinates the delivery of CSIP contract objectives across the UK, including overall management of the programme, liaison with funders, with/between partner organisations, other stakeholders and the UK media and general public. He also co-ordinates the regional recovery and post-mortem examination of stranded animals and facilitates the underpinning science carried out by the programme. He has over 20 years experience in strandings response, recovery and investigation, both in the UK and internationally.

Daren has been the General Manager of Project Jonah, New Zealand, since 2012. This operational role provides stranding response to marine mammal events nationally. Daren has extensive first-hand experience at many mass strandings, and comprehensive emergency management training. His experience includes direct hands-on welfare of stranded whales, logistical and operational leadership and strategic planning for multi-day events working in a multi-agency model. He works closely with the New Zealand Government’s Department of Conservation, both in the field and providing training to their employees to provide best practice welfare and response. Daren is an experienced educator, directly training 400-500 volunteer members of the public annually, to continue growing a highly effective national stranding network. Daren was instrumental in Project Jonah being a founding member of the World Cetacean Alliance and he regularly consults with leading researchers at New Zealand Universities.

Frances is a veterinarian who has worked on the veterinary care and rehabilitation of stranded marine mammals, and research into marine mammal diseases since 1994. Her interests include determining the impacts of human activities on marine mammal health, and how marine mammals can in turn serve as indicators of ocean health. She received both her VetMB (1984) and a PhD in Zoology (1991) from the University of Cambridge, U.K. Frances worked at The Marine Mammal Center, USA for 25 years, and currently serves as Commissioner on the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission appointed by President Obama.

Ailsa is the Director at Sea Mammal Research Unit, University of St Andrews, Scotland. Her expertise lies in determining the effect that contaminant and pathogen exposure has on the risk of mortality and morbidity in marine mammals, both seals and cetaceans. Ailsa is particularly interested in determining an animal's early survival and reproductive capability, and how they interact with the species immune and endocrine systems. This has led to more fundamental questions about how the immune system may be shaped by the life history strategy of marine mammals.

Gabriela is a veterinarian and researcher of the National University of Costa Rica. Since 2009, Gabriela has led the Bacteriology Laboratory of the National Service of Animal Health of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock of the Government of Costa Rica. Her main interest is the diagnosis and pathobiology of Brucella infections in marine mammals and other domestic and wild animals. She completed her MSc in Microbiology (2011) and PhD in Science (2019) with an emphasis in epidemiology of brucellosis in terrestrial and marine mammals in the University of Costa Rica. Her specialization with rescue, attention and research of stranded cetaceans began in 2004 with training at the Mote Marine Laboratory in Florida, US, and with the Taiwanese Cetacean Society in Taipei, Taiwan in 2005. Since then, she has been a member of the International Medical Association of Aquatic Animals (IAAAM), participated in multiple international conferences, and given several trainings on handling and investigation of stranded marine mammals.

Milton is the Research Coordinator of the Humpback Whale Institute in Brazil. He holds a DVM and has worked on the rescue of humpback whales and other cetaceans for 20 years. Milton has further been involved in the rescue and rehabilitation of manatees for two years. He currently co-ordinates the research cruises of humpback whales in the Abrolhos Bank, Brazil. Milton holds extensive experience in rescue and necropsy of large whales and dolphins along the coast of Brazil and Amazonian Basin. He has been a member of the Brazilian Stranding Network since 2000 and a member of Brazilian Delegation in Scientific Committee of IWC since 2007. Milton also participated in the South Ocean Research Partnership (SORP) expedition to Antarctic in 2016.

David is Technical Advisor – Human Impact Reduction to the International Whaling Commission Secretariat and is further employed at the Center for Coastal Studies, US. David has studied humpback whales since 1978, in three oceans, from Greenland to the Caribbean, and Hawai’i to American Samoa.  He has been a key coordinator of two large ocean-wide, international collaborative studies of humpback whales: the SPLASH project in the North Pacific and the YONAH project in the North Atlantic. He works extensively with large whale entanglement, helping to develop rescue techniques, set up trained rescue networks and gather information that will hopefully lead to prevention.  He is currently the convener of a group of experts comprised of the directors of all existing national and regional entanglement response networks. Working through the IWC, this group has developed consensus “principles and guidelines” as well as a strategy and curriculum for building international capacity to respond to entangled whales.  He is the convener of the Global Whale Entanglement Response Network (GWERN), which facilitates communication and cooperation between National Networks.

Michael has been associated with projects to conserve and manage top predators in South Africa for many years. He began his career in the South African Department of Environmental Affairs in 1970 and was appointed as the Control Technician responsible for the Ecosystem and Conservation group in 2007. He specializes in telemetry studies, including the live capture, handling and attachments of instruments to marine mammals, seabirds, turtles and large sharks. He assisted with the drafting of a SA National Response Plan for Cetacean Strandings and in 2010 was appointed as the national incident controller responsible for training of provincial cetacean stranding networks in SA. During his employment he managed marine mammal strandings and dissections for Peter Best and the Department. Mike also successfully led teams to capture and transfer oiled African penguins from the Robben Island colony to rehabilitation centers on the mainland during the MV Treasure oil spill. He participated as the South African representative on three IWC/IDCR whale sighting cruises in the Antarctic and a local IWC cruise to estimate Brydes whale numbers along the SA coast. He has also led numerous SA cetacean cruises, including several in Namibia and one in Mozambique. He was largely responsible for the establishment of the South African whale Disentanglement network in 2006 and is presently the operations and training manager for the group.

As Deputy Vice President, Conservation and Animal Welfare, Katie is responsible for developing and directing IFAW’s animal rescue vision and planning together with the VP of Programs and International Operations, animal rescue team, country offices and program staff. Based in the US, Katie identifies, develops and oversees the implementation of strategies to globalize animal rescue programs and establish IFAW as the premier animal rescue and relief organization worldwide. Before taking on her current role, Katie was manager of IFAW's Marine Mammal Rescue and Research team of six scientists and responders and more than 350 volunteers. Previously, Katie had led the Cape Cod Stranding Network (CCSN), since its inception in 1998 until the organization merged with IFAW in 2007. Under Katie’s leadership release rates for stranded marine mammals on Cape Cod went from 14 to over 70 percent because of the team’s constant efforts to improve health assessment techniques and supportive care, and reducing response time by using highly trained volunteers. Katie led the team in developing techniques for preventing mass strandings, resulting in a 70 percent success rate overall and a 96 percent prevention rate for Atlantic white-sided dolphins.

Lindsay is the senior research scientist at SMRU Hong Kong, of the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. Lindsay has lived and worked in Asia for more than two decades and much of her work has focused on the status of Asian marine mammals. Lindsay initiated Hong Kong’s first strandings programme and is a founding member of the Asian Marine Mammal Strandings Network (AMMSN). Her role in AMMSN is to promote collaborative research on data derived from strandings and she co-chairs the AMMSN Research Committee with Prof Chansue (Thailand, also on this committee). Lindsay also co-chairs the Small Cetacean Committee of the International Whaling Commission and strives to incorporate small cetacean issues within the wider work of the IWC. Lindsay’s ongoing research focuses on tropical cetaceans and she works on several projects in Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, Malaysia, Cambodia and Sri Lanka, where anthropogenic activities are having a profound impact on marine mammals.

Teri is based at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), US, where she heads the Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program. Holding both DVM and PhD degrees, Teri is the co-ordinator of a national surveillance program for marine animal health in the US, and has published broadly in infectious and non-infectious diseases of marine mammals. Teri also coordinates responses to die-offs and disease outbreaks in marine organisms.

Aviad has served in the conservation of the Mediterranean Sea for over two decades. His PhD at the University of Haifa, Israel, examined a population of bottlenose dolphins, bottom trawl catch trends and the interaction between the two, along the Mediterranean continental shelf of Israel. He has completed over 25,000 km of coastal marine mammal surveys along Israeli Mediterranean coastal waters. This research has led to the recent declaration of the Israeli coastal water as an IMMA (Important Marine Mammal Area) for bottlenose and common dolphins by the IUCN. Aviad is the head of the Dolphin and Sea Center, the educational center of IMMRAC (Israel Marine Mammal Research & Assistance Centre (NGO). He is also the head of the Top Predators Laboratory at the Morris Kahn Marine Research Station, University of Haifa, a member of the ACCOBAMS scientific committee and active member of the IMMRAC stranding network in Israel, and a member of the executive board of the ECS.

Ursula studied veterinary medicine in Germany and France, conducted her PhD in the field of ecotoxicology and her rehabilitation in zoology. She is currently Professor at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Hannover, Germany, and has an Honorary Professorship from the University of Aarhus, Denmark. She is certified as specialist in Wildlife Biology and Medicine and is currently Diplomate of the Wildlife European College of Zoo Medicine for Wildlife Population Health and Diplomate of European College of Aquatic Animal Health. Ursula is currently director of the Institute of Terrestrial and Aquatic Wildlife Research at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Germany. Within the discipline of wildlife biology, she focuses within her work on basic research, applied research and monitoring. Research is concentrated on diseases in wild animals and diseases transmittable between humans and animals, so-called zoonoses. Ursula has conducted several thousand necropsies on marine mammals worldwide. She has served as expert for the German Government in a large number of different agreements and committees.

Raphaela is a veterinary surgeon who holds a MSc, PhD and is the wildlife veterinarian and research biologist for the North Slope Borough's Department of Wildlife Management. Raphaela also leads the Marine Mammal Health Research Program and has worked on wildlife health issues in the Arctic, subarctic, and subtropics. Her overarching research focus has been on marine and terrestrial ecosystem health and wildlife disease ecology with an emphasis on the “One Medicine/Health” approach.  She holds a Research Scientist position with the Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, USA.

Marcela is a wildlife veterinarian with 20 years expertise in marine mammal and seabird health in Latin America. Marcela graduated from Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires (UNCPBA), Argentina in 1995. She joined the University of California, Davis in 2013, as the Regional Director for the UC Davis Veterinary School One Health Institute’s Latin America Program. Previously she worked with the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Field Veterinary Program for seventeen years. In 2003 she established the Southern Right Whale Health Monitoring Program at Peninsula Valdes, Argentina, with Vicky Rowntree and Mariano Sironi. Her work has been instrumental in recording over 790 whale deaths, the largest mortality ever recorded in a baleen whale, and drawing international attention to this critical problem. She has participated in several International Whaling Commission initiatives such as the Cetacean Tagging Best Practices Advisory Committee, the Expert Panel on Strandings and the Large Whale Strandings, Disentanglements, Tagging and Euthanasia working groups. Marcela is also former President of the Wildlife Disease Association and Coordinator for the IUCN Wildlife Health Specialist Group in South America.