The Dead Do Tell Tales: What We Learn From Stranded Animals - Rachel Lennon

The Dead Do Tell Tales: What we learn from stranded marine animals with Rachel Lennon, PhD Researcher with the Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme (SMASS).

Stranding events offer a rare opportunity to learn about marine animals and the pressures they face in our changing seas. Drawing on almost 30 years of SMASS records, this session will explore how long-term, spatiotemporal data help us trace shifts in cetacean strandings across Scotland. We’ll take a closer look at projects such as BEEP, which investigates bycatch cases in detail, and BeachTrack, which helps us understand reporting effort and contextualise stranding patterns. We’ll also examine how advanced analytical tools like machine learning are helping us uncover subtle patterns hidden within pathology data, revealing population-level insights that were previously difficult to detect. Throughout the session, we’ll highlight the essential role citizen scientists play in collecting high-quality observations, providing the fine-scale resolution needed to understand emerging trends. Together, these contributions help build a richer picture of marine wildlife health and strengthen our ability to protect the species that strand along our shores.

We invite you to join the conversation, ask questions, and share your experiences. We want our talks to be accessible for everyone so we are asking you to pay what you can. Your donation will support marine conservation in Scotland. Subtitles can be generated during the webinar. This talk may contain some distressing images. Please ensure under 16s are accompanied by an adult. Thank you.