Ethical standards for research on marine mammals (Conor Ryan & Vassili Papastavrou)

Presentation at the ASAB Ethics of Animal Behaviour and Welfare Research workshop held online 21 -22 June 2022

Wildlife & Fieldwork Ethics & Welfare Session

Research on marine mammals raises a number of important ethical issues. The continuation of whaling by Iceland despite the international moratorium provided opportunities for scientists to obtain samples resulting in more than 35 peer-reviewed papers. In 2021 we published an analysis of the ethical and legal issues for those scientists collaborating with Icelandic whalers. There appeared to be very little consideration or understanding of the legal and ethical issues associated with the killing of whales amongst the researchers, funding bodies, universities and journals. Ethical statements were rarely provided and those that were written were incomplete. Whilst research using whaling data may seem acceptable to those involved, it often becomes hard to justify once in the public domain. There is a particular danger for early career researchers who may become unwittingly involved in unethical activities. We also consider the ethical issues raised by non-lethal research on marine mammals including tagging, sampling and restraint. Examples to be included are both historical and recent. We discuss instances where study animals have died and where tags were mistaken for harpoons. For all these types of study, ethical frameworks need to be developed which are analogous to those used in international biomedical research. In particular (as in medical research), offshoring of research to jurisdictions with weaker regulatory frameworks should be prohibited..

Ethics statement. This is a broad review and discussion of published information.