Dear Marine Mammal Scientists, Conservationists and Educators, Marine debris is a ubiquitous problem on our world's shorelines and in freshwater and marine environments. Having worked on the issue of marine debris for the past three decades through the International Coastal Cleanup, <http://www.oceanconservancy.org/our-work/international-coastal-cleanup/ top-10-items-found-1.html> Ocean Conservancy is now engaged in a research exercise to qualitatively and quantitatively evaluate the threat of specific marine debris items to ocean health. We have chosen expert elicitation as our survey method because it has been used for decades in the fields of social science and risk assessment. Expert elicitation synthesizes opinions of experts while assessing uncertainty around those views. Your professional judgment, along with your colleagues around the world, will be captured using the survey instrument and data will be analyzed to determine the relative threat posed by the most persistent forms of debris on beaches and in the marine environment. A manuscript will be composed from the findings of this research and submitted for publication. The questions in this SURVEY <https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CY8CRC8> are designed to capture information on your expert judgment regarding the threat of specific ocean trash items across marine taxa. Based on your professional experience and judgment, the focus is on what threats and impacts you conclude are occurring, and the severity and specificity of those impacts. Please respond for all taxa for which you have a professional judgment, not just those for which you have professional research experience. The elicitation methodology rigorously captures professional judgment, rather than field data, observation or published literature with this questionnaire. This exercise does require thinking but it should not take more than 30 minutes to complete the 10 questions. As a token of our appreciation, we will send you a limited-edition Ocean Conservancy t-shirt for submitting your survey-details provided on the final page of the survey. Survey Link: Prioritizing Ocean Trash Threat Survey <https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CY8CRC8> After completing the survey, your responses will be cataloged in a way to ensure complete anonymity; your identity will not be attached to your responses in any way. If you would like to be acknowledged for your participation in the final publication, email Nicholas Mallos at nmallos@oceanconservancy.org. Thank you in advance for your consideration and participation. Regards, Nicholas J. Mallos, MEM --- Nicholas Mallos Conservation Biologist, Marine Debris Specialist Ocean Conservancy Phone: 202.351.0478 Twitter: @NickMallos