Photo © Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme

The ASCOBANS region contains many long-term strandings monitoring and investigation programmes, several spanning multiple decades. Data that are collected through these programmes are routinely collated on national/local databases, and in many instances, made available through reports and/or public release of information. Currently there is no mechanism to combine and display these data at an international level or across the range-states of the species under investigation. Collating data at a wider spatial resolution is likely to assist in identifying unusual mortality events, assessing trends in species distribution and streamline IGO reporting requirements.

The objective of the workshop is to identify the possible benefits and challenges associated with developing and curating a European wide strandings database for the ASCOBANS region. This workshop will aim to a) identify key drivers and benefits from developing a strandings database b )identify stakeholder requirements / specifications / concerns for a database, including issues of data ownership; c) identify important technical considerations and operational maintenance requirements; d) formulate a design brief, incl. potential outline costs and timescales for the project.

The workshop is organized as part of the 34th Annual Conference of the European Cetacean Society. Due to space limitations, participation to the workshop is by invitation only. For any queries, including expressions of interest to attend, please contact Jenny Renell, ASCOBANS Coordinator. Kindly note the Secretariat is unable to cover travel costs.