Tissue sample collection in the conservation and rescue context comes with some great challenges that go beyond the sample collection itself. Working with marine wildlife, we are often faced with scenarios where animals die well before we can access them and/or the animals strand in very remote locations making accessibility a challenge. Couple these innate complexities with the many stakeholders that are involved with marine wildlife events, makes sample collection for research and diagnostics purposes challenging, time consuming and often leaves us in situations where sample collection just isn’t possible.
Obtaining samples from marine wildlife can be invaluable to the assessment of the health of a species on a population level as well as allowing us an insight into the ecological health of the ocean. Thus sample collection and conducting post mortem analysis on all animals is pivotal to understanding the health of our marine ecosystem. Veterinarians, University bodies, Government agencies, Indigenous Peoples and local community members are just a few of the many stakeholders that need to be engaged for every marine wildlife stranding. Each of these bodies have different agendas thus making decision making a complex process.
This presentation is hoped to give you an insight into the steps required for marine animal sampling, the stakeholder engagement and a discussion about the importance of tissue sampling.