Research on wild cetaceans involves welfare tradeoffs between scientific knowledge and individual animal costs. Ethical research protocols minimize these costs while enabling important conservation science.
Cetacean research welfare requires ongoing ethical assessment of method impacts against knowledge value. The least invasive methods including photo-identification and acoustic monitoring cause negligible welfare costs. More invasive methods like biopsying require careful justification and minimization of individual exposure. The growth of non-invasive research technologies is progressively reducing the need for procedures that cause animal stress.