We are pleased to announce publication of our paper on assessing severity of entanglement and vessel strike whale injuries: Carretta, J.V. and A.G. Henry. 2022. Risk Assessment of Whale Entanglement and Vessel Strike Injuries From Case Narratives and Classification Trees. Frontiers In Marine Science. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2022.863070 Abstract Entanglements and vessel strikes impact large whales worldwide. Post-event health status is often unknown because whales are seen once or over short spans that conceal long-term health declines. Well-studied populations with high site fidelity verified by photo-ID offer opportunity to confirm deaths, health declines and recoveries. We used known outcome entanglements and vessel strikes of right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) and humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) to model probabilities of deaths, health declines and recoveries with Random Forest (RF) classification trees. Variables included presence or absence of phrases from case narratives (‘deep laceration’, ‘cyamid’, ‘healing’, ‘superficial’) and a categorical variable for vessel size. Health status post-entanglement was correctly classified in 95.7% of right whale and 93.6% of humpback whale cases (expected by chance=50%). Health status post-vessel strike was correctly classified in 91.4% of right whale and 88.6% of humpback whale cases. Important variables included cyamid presence, emaciation, discolored skin, constricting entanglements, gear-free resightings, superficial or healing lacerations, and vessel size. Cross-validated RF models were applied to unknown outcome cases to estimate the probability of deaths, health declines and recoveries. Total serious injuries (probability of death or health decline > 0.50) assigned by RF were nearly equal to current injury assessment methods applied by biologists for known outcomes. However, RF consistently predicted higher serious injury totals for unknown outcomes, suggesting that current assessment methods may underestimate risk for cases lacking details or long-term observations. Advantages of the RF method include: 1) risk models are based on known outcomes; 2) unknown outcomes are assigned post-event health status probabilities; and 3) identification of important predictor variables improves data collection standards. The paper is open-access and can be downloaded at https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2022.863070 Sincerely, James V. Carretta * * * * * * * * * "The human spirit at least needs to believe that it is timeless and unsupervised." - Jon Young, author of *What The Robin Knows <https://what-the-robin-knows.harpercollins.com/home>* *Selected recent publications* *Carretta, J.V. and A.G. Henry. 2022. Risk assessment of whale entanglement and vessel strike injuries from case narratives and classification trees. Frontiers in Marine Science. Volume 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2022.863070 <https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2022.863070>* *Danil, K., Berman, M., Frame, E., Preti, A., Fire, S., Leighfield, T., Carretta, J., Carter, M.L., & Lefebvre, K. 2021. Marine algal toxins and their vectors in southern California cetaceans. Harmful Algae. Vol. 103, 2021.* *Jannot, J., E.J. Ward, K.A. Somers, B.E. Feist, T.P. Good, D. Lawson, and J.V. Carretta. 2021. Bayesian time-series models to estimate humpback whale entanglements in the U.S. West Coast sablefish pot fishery. Frontiers in Marine Science. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.775187 <https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.775187>* *Curtis, K.A. and Carretta, J.V., 2020. ObsCovgTools: Assessing observer coverage needed to document and estimate rare event bycatch. Fisheries Research, 225, p.105493. <https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165783620300102?casa_token=99JP_qerFUwAAAAA:T0TDP31MAFz7HqfoCOgcBScawcYa5qySPr7U5ZVDm1ea-Kox9R-ylUIkLZCTKzxvPxprVmU2zes>* *Carretta, J.V. 2018. A machine-learning approach to assign species <https://www.int-res.com/abstracts/esr/v36/p89-98/>**to ‘unidentified’ entangled whales. Endangered Species Research <https://www.int-res.com/abstracts/esr/v36/p89-98/>**Vol. 36: 89–98 <https://www.int-res.com/abstracts/esr/v36/p89-98/>.* *Laake, J.L., M.S. Lowry, R.L. DeLong, S.R. Melin, and J.V. Carretta. 2018. Population growth and status of California sea lions. The Journal of Wildlife Management, DOI: 10.1002/jwmg.21405. <https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jwmg.21405>Carretta, J.V., Danil, K., Chivers, S.J., Weller, D.W., Janiger, D.S., Berman‐Kowalewski, M., Hernandez, K.M., Harvey, J.T., Dunkin, R.C., Casper, D.R., Stoudt, S., Flannery, M., Wilkinson, K., Huggins, J., and Lambourn, D.M. 2016. Recovery rates of bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) carcasses estimated from stranding and survival rate data. Marine Mammal Science, 32(1), pp.349-362. <https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/mms.12264>*