The Indian River Lagoon (IRL) on Florida’s east coast is a biologically diverse estuary and an important habitat to the threatened Florida manatee ( Trichechus manatus latirostris ). An unusual mortality event (UME) was declared by the Working Group on Marine Mammal Unusual Mortality Events in 2013 after a marked increase in manatee deaths in the IRL of an unknown cause. This UME followed a dramatic reduction of seagrass cover...

Identifying, assessing, and ranking the impact of individual threats is fundamental to the conservation and recovery of rare and endangered species. In this analysis, we quantify not only the frequency of specific causes‐of‐death (CODs) among Main Hawaiian Island (MHI) monk seals, but also assess the impact of individual CODs on the intrinsic growth rate, λ, of the MHI population. We used gross necropsy results, histopathology...

Tags have been used to examine migration routes and habitat use of large whales for >40 yr, however, evaluation of tag wound healing has largely been short‐term, anecdotal or generalized. This study developed methods for systematic photographic assessment of long‐term external consequences of tag placement, to determine potential differences in wound healing between species and tag types and thus advise future tagging efforts...

The parasitic nematode Crassicauda sp. was initially described in kogiid whales from specimens collected within cervical tissues, uncommon sites of infection for this parasite. Crassicauda sp. has only been reported in Kogia breviceps to date, but no study has yet investigated a large sample of both kogiid species. A 15 yr record of 104 kogiid strandings ( K. sima , n = 40; K. breviceps , n = 64) in North Carolina and Virginia...