Across the UK, whales, dolphins, porpoises, and seals have frequently been found stranded on the coast. The Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme (SMASS) was founded with the purpose of providing a systematic approach to the surveillance of Scotland’s marine species by collating, analysing and reporting data regarding whales, dolphins and porpoises seals, marine turtles and basking sharks are stranded on the Scottish coastline. The collection of this data allows for an improved understanding of the health of these species and reveals information about the potential risks that they are facing.
In 2022/23, SMASS received a £224,495 grant from the Nature Restoration Fund via SMEEF to renovate a facility that would support marine strandings investigation work in the Highlands and Island region and to develop and update the environmental monitoring app ‘Beachtrack’, which facilitates the collection and use of high resolution data on marine strandings and other key metrics of marine environmental health around the Scottish coastline.
Early in 2024, SMASS were successful in securing a further grant from SMEEF to replace their stranding response vehicle and create a relational, web-accessible database for storage of key SMASS datasets. SMASS received £203,921 for this work. This grant round was made possible with funds from the Nature Restoration Fund. For more information about how to contribute to SMEEF contact manager@smeef.scot