A new association has launched to shore up the growing community of professionals who assist stranded marine mammals.

The National Marine Mammal Stranding Association (NMMSA), announced last week, is designed to support and unify the disparate volunteers and nonprofit groups in the United States that work to rescue creatures like seals, dolphins, and whales. Standards around that work are set by a federal agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. But Katie Moore, senior director of animal rescue at the International Fund for Animal Welfare and a member of the NMMSA steering committee, says smaller nonprofits in the space have looked for additional support.

“There’s only so much a federal agency can do,” Moore said. “They provide a lot of guidance and have sets of best practices. But the stranding networks are mostly nonprofits or nonprofit arms of universities or aquariums. They are almost always very small, with a lot of grassroots volunteers.”

“I think the interest is born of individuals wanting to share information, wanting to advance technologies that can support all of us doing better and more effective work,” he said. “The association will be something of a coordinator, clearinghouse, and organizing center to advance those kinds of interests.”

As NMMSA gets up and running, it is formally managed and financially supported for now at the nonprofit Marine Mammal Center. Jeff Boehm, chief external relations manager there (and also a member of NMMSA’s steering committee), said feedback the community gave when discussions began in 2024 were enthusiastic, especially in terms of advocating for the community and providing more training support.

Moore noted that advocacy will be a key part of the work of the nascent association, especially when it comes to pushing for more funding for professionals in the marine-rescue community. “Right now we do get some funding, or have in the past gotten grant funding from the U.S. government, but it’s competitive, and not everybody got it—there were always more applications than there was funding to go around to support stranding response.”

There’s also a wealth of information about particular animals and trends that is unevenly distributed, Moore said, and she’s hopeful a new association can assist in coordinating it. “When we’re talking about professional development and sharing training and things like that with the different expertise around the network—some of us respond mostly to dolphins and whales, where others respond to seals and sea lions, so there’s a lot that can be gained by sharing that information.”

The White House recently proposed a 41 percent cut to the budget for NOAA Fisheries, the department that administers marine mammal rescue. Both Boehm and Moore noted that discussions around the association predated the Trump administration, but added that a new association can assist at a time when typical federal funding patterns have been disrupted. 

“It’s inspired us to move as quickly as we can in doing this and to get ahead of it,” Moore said. “So if there are increasing gaps in what our federal partners can do to help us and to support us, we’ll be able to help each other and support each other.”