Since 1990, the collaborative UK Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (CSIP) has been funded by UK government to;
Collate, analyse and report data for all cetacean strandings around the coast of the UK,
Determine the causes of death in stranded cetaceans, including by-catch and physical trauma,
Undertake surveillance on the incidence of disease in stranded cetaceans in order to identify any substantial new threats to their conservation status,
Maintain a national cetacean tissue archive.
In addition, the CSIP now also conducts similar research on UK stranded marine turtles and more recently began to investigate UK stranded basking sharks.
The research conducted under this programme continues to provide insight into the diseases, health status and threats to cetaceans and marine turtles in UK waters. Such a systematic and long-term monitoring programme of stranded animals facilitates the investigation of spatio-temporal trends in disease, causes of mortality and exposure to environmental pollutants largely inaccessible by other methods. It also enables both ongoing assessment of the dynamics of particular threats and their response to specific conservation measures.
The CSIP also continues to submit data on strandings and post-mortem examinations to the UK annual national report for ASCOBANS (Agreement on the Conservation of Small Cetaceans of the Baltic and North Seas).
