Dear all,

The International Whaling Commission (IWC) adopted Resolution 2022-1 at its 68th meeting, calling for a coordinated scientific effort to assess the impact of marine plastic pollution on cetaceans. Following endorsement of the next steps at IWC69, a tender to appraise the availability of cetacean-marine debris encounter data to enable a global risk assessment is being carried out by a team at the University of Exeter.

In order to assist in this work, contributions of relevant data sources (published, unpublished, reports or other grey literature) to three established databases are welcome:

1)Cetacean Distribution data (Ocean basin/ Global Scale)

2) Plastic Distribution data (Ocean basin/ Global Scale)

3) Evidence of Impacts (entanglement/ingestion/habitat).

Please complete the form below once for each source you wish to submit.

Form to complete >>> Contribution of sources to the IWC Tender on Marine Debris – Fill in form

Submission deadline is Friday 27th February 17:00 GMT.

Any queries please contact Emma Hunter (eh858@exeter.ac.uk).

Thank you very much in advance. Your knowledge will greatly assist this project.

Emma on behalf of the rest of the team (Sarah, Brendan, Pine and Greg cc’d)

Emma Hunter (she/her)

PhD researcher - Plastic Pollution and ocean giants

Centre for Ecology and Conservation (CEC)

University of Exeter, Penryn Campus

Penryn, Cornwall

TR10 9FE, UK

Email: eh858@exeter.ac.uk

Mobile: +44 (0) 7507 182233

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