Research on marine mammals — whales, dolphins, seals, and sea otters — involves unique welfare challenges from capture difficulty to the complexity of assessing welfare in ocean-adapted animals. Understanding these challenges advances welfare science.
Marine mammal research welfare reflects both the importance of understanding these species for their conservation and the genuine welfare costs of some research methods. Biopsying requires boats to approach within meters of cetaceans, causing disruption; biopsy darts penetrate skin and blubber to collect tissue. Satellite tagging on pinnipeds requires capture that creates acute stress. At the same time, the non-invasive methodological revolution — aerial photogrammetry, acoustic monitoring, eDNA sampling, drone-based research — has dramatically expanded what researchers can learn without animal capture. The welfare-research balance in marine mammal science is genuinely improving through methodological innovation, and welfare advocates who follow and support this innovation can contribute to accelerating the transition to less invasive approaches.