Abstract

Stranded marine mammals do not constitute an ideal sentinel system for population health as they do not represent the entire population. In addition, samples from stranded animals are infrequently age and sex structured. Biological data such as life history, reproductive success, feeding habits, and disease progression are not typically available. The present study reports two cases of stranded bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) whose biological data and population dynamics have been previously investigated on the filed by photo identification. The integration of in vivo and postmortem information provide new insight on dolphin behavior and on the effective threat represented by trammel feeding.

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