University of Hawaii Health and Stranding Lab; NMFS Permit #18786

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are a class of synthetic toxic contaminants (e.g., DDT, PCBs) that are a documented threat to marine mammals. In general, POPs magnify up the aquatic food web and accumulate in the blubber of cetaceans. Exposure to POPs has been linked to adverse health effects altering resistance to disease, growth, development, reproduction, and a population decline in some species of cetaceans. Evaluation of blubber POPs is often cost prohibitive due to expensive specialized analytical equipment, need for technical expertise, lack of a standardized protocol for blubber extraction, and time and effort to extract POPs from individual blubber samples in preparation for analytical assessment.

University of Hawaii Health and Stranding Lab; NMFS Permit #18786

In 2021, Dolphin Quest funded a grant proposal to develop and validate a cost-effective model for analysis of POPs in blubber of cetaceans. Working in collaboration with a notable and accomplished analytical lab at University of California-Davis, a novel cetacean blubber extraction protocol was developed and validated. Applicability of this cost-effective model will also be assessed by extraction and analysis of POPs in archived blubber samples of pygmy killer whales, which will aid in filling the knowledge gap on POPs on pygmy killer whales and provide a unique opportunity to correlate POP exposure in a pregnant female with its corresponding fetus.

US Commander Pacific Fleet Environmental Readiness Division