We conduct research on protected and endangered living marine resources, including marine mammals, turtles, fishes, sharks, invertebrates, and seabirds, with a special focus on the eastern Pacific. We assess marine species relative to management objectives in U.S. waters, or oceans where the United States has a vested interest. The research feeding into our assessment science has four components: abundance estimation and monitoring of abundance trends, identification of species to conserve, quantifying life history, condition, and health, and understanding the state of the ecosystem.
We house one of the largest marine mammal and marine turtle sample collections in the world, with more than 140,000 tissue samples and 60,000 DNA samples, spanning more than 100 years of collection. These samples are used in an array of phylogenetic, ecological and behavioral studies. The collection has become the national repository for marine turtle samples, as well as a highly trusted repository for marine mammal samples donated by national and international institutions.
View our site at www.swfsc.noaa.gov or click on our quick links below:
