Management of Marine Mammal Morbidity and Mortality Events – Emergency Response and Preparedness Full-day Workshop Sunday, December 8, 2019 Increasing climate and environmental variability may lead to unusual and elevated marine mammal stranding events. The increase in frequency of Unusual Stranding Events (UME) has taxed the resources of established stranding responders as well as local, state, and federal agencies. The need to identify ways to rapidly locate and deploy resources is critical to addressing these emerging events. At the start of 2019, nine federally declared Unusual Mortality Events (UME) were open in the United States, with seven events actively responding to elevated stranding rates of marine mammal taxa from whales to pinnipeds. These mortality events increased the demands placed on the national stranding response network and required a significant amount of additional resources to manage. Over the last decade, stranding responders have worked with local, state, and federal government emergency response frameworks to integrate response efforts related to large scale marine mammal morbidity and mortality events into their response operations. Case studies of large mortality events, high profile stranding cases, and complex incidents will be presented in this workshop, along with lessons learned documented through extensive after-action review processes with stranding network professionals. Recommendations developed by stranding responders and government agencies will be provided and interactive training sessions for marine mammal field responders will be integrated into the workshop. Unusual stranding events considered in this workshop will include mass strandings, elevated stranding rates over an extended time period, oil spill related events, out-of-habitat situations, carcass disposal and general response that taxes the local resources during an emergency response. Intended audience includes existing, as well as newly formed, stranding response organizations, non-governmental, academic, local, state and federal response entities. Workshop Information and Registration <https://www.wmmconference.org/workshops/#Management%20of%20Marine%20Mammal%20Morbidity%20and%20Mortality%20Events%20%E2%80%93%20Emergency%20Response%20and%20Preparedness> We look forward to seeing you in Barcelona! Mendy Garron and Robert DiGiovanni Jr. (workshop organizers) mendy.garron@noaa.gov / rdigiovanni@amseas.org