With Michaela Wellman, a Stranding Technician with IFAW’s Marine Mammal Rescue Team.

IFAW’s Marine Mammal Rescue (MMR) Team is the responding agency for live and dead stranded marine mammals, including dolphins, porpoises, whales, and seals, on Cape Cod down to the Southeastern border of Massachusetts, covering ~750 miles of coastline. Cape Cod has the highest frequency of small cetacean mass strandings in the world, driven primarily by the gently sloping sand flats, large tidal fluctuations, close proximity to fertile feeding grounds, social nature of the species that strand, and the hook-like shape of the Cape itself. Wellfleet specifically is a hotspot within a hotspot for these strandings. IFAW’s veterinarians and biologists perform an in-field health assessment on every live stranded cetacean and those that are deemed sufficiently healthy are immediately release back to the ocean. Learn more about the critical work that IFAW’s MMR team does right here in your own backyard!