Vital Support for Cetacean Stranding Response, including End

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission-Southwest Field Laboratory is awarded the Vital Support for Cetacean Stranding Response grant to maintain critical infrastructure for responding to stranded cetaceans in southwest Florida. This initiative focuses on a high-priority area of the Southeast U.S. prone to mass strandings, human interactions, and entanglement events. The project involves retaining a part-time cetacean stranding coordinator, performing high-quality necropsies, and utilizing advanced diagnostics on archived tissues to provide the National Marine Fisheries Service with cause of death determinations for small cetaceans and endangered large whales. Additionally, the commission will lead and participate in disentanglement events and mass stranding responses across Florida and the broader Southeast region while providing essential stranding data. Administered by NOAA's Fisheries Protected Resources Program Office under solicitation NOAA-NMFS-PRPO-2025-27629, the award has a total cost of 112,946 dollars, with a federal share of 86,180 dollars. The project period originally spanned from October 1, 2025, to September 30, 2026, but has been extended through September 30, 2027. The agreement requires the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to adhere to semi-annual reporting requirements and operate under the guidelines of the Marine Mammal Data Program to ensure effective data dissemination and regional coordination.