Partners

National partners

Our work with porpoises and other marine mammals gives us the chance to work with many other research programmes. For example:

  • Wageningen Marine Research with diet and contaminant studies
  • NIOZ that does research on foraging history of cetaceans
  • TNO on the effect of underwater noise on marine mammals
  • SOS Dolfijn when a live marine mammal has stranded or just died
  • Naturalis (the Natural History Museum in Leiden) joins us when larger whales strand on the Dutch coast
  • The Dutch Wildlife Health Centre (DWHC) for a continuous exchange of information concerning wildlife disease

The National Stranding Network collects and reports all stranded animals and is partly made up of:

Found a stranded marine mammal? Register it at: www.stranding.nl

Collaboration plastic pollution

Plastic waste is a major environmental problem; both in magnitude and in complexity, with effective solutions inherently interdisciplinary. Our researchers are part of the Utrecht Plastic Sources, Sinks and Solutions (UPlasticS3) network. This network is a unique combination of scientists with all expertises required to investigate the sources and sinks of plastic pollution. For more information regarding this network: https://www.uu.nl/en/research/sustainability/uplastics3

European partners

Our research permits close collaboration with similar programmes at European universities, such as the Universities of Liege and Hannover (TiHO) as well as the British Stranding Networks; the Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme in Inverness and Glasgow and the Cetacean Stranding Investigation Programme in London. Belgium, Germany, Northern France, England and Scotland all have a North Sea coastline; marine mammals do not recognise country borders and, therefore, a coordinated effort to conserve the North Sea and Wadden Sea marine mammal populations is essential.
 

Stranding Initiative by the International Whaling Commission

The International Whaling Commission is an organisation operating globally for the protection of whales. In 2016, the IWC approved a new initiative to share international expertise and information on strandings, establish best practice guidelines, and provide training for emergency response, with the ultimate goal of building global capacity for stranding response, research, and data collection. The activities of the IWC Stranding Initiative are led and guided by a diverse team of experts. This team comprises veterinarians, pathologists, forensic scientists, marine biologists, and educators from global stranding networks, government agencies, academic institutions, and non-governmental conservation organisations.