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 NMLC
The National Marine Life Center is an independent non-profit organization
that is taking a distinctive approach to meeting a need and responding
to an environmental concern. By creating a hospital for stranded
dolphins, porpoises, seals, small whales, and marine turtles, and
a public marine animal discovery center, the NMLC is making a contribution
to the preservation of our ocean environment and to science education.
When the NMLC is fully operational, after building renovation,
it will be the only facility and program of its kind in North America
– an unaffiliated organization dedicated to the medical care
of the full range of marine animals that strand in the northeastern
United States (many of them endangered species) and to research
and public education.
A 501(c)(3) organization, the NMLC was incorporated in the Commonwealth
of Massachusetts to create and operate a hospital for stranded marine
animals and a science/education center. It is governed by a Board
of Trustees and is located in the Town of Bourne, the Village of
Buzzards Bay on the Cape Cod Canal. The NMLC was invited by the
Town’s Board of Selectmen and Economic Development Task Force
to lease Town land (at $1 per year) with the belief that the NMLC
could be the cornerstone for downtown revitalization and economic
development.
The NMLC mission is:
to rehabilitate and release stranded whales, dolphins, seals
and sea turtles, and to advance scientific knowledge and education
in marine wildlife health and conservation.
A STRANDING HOT SPOT
The region is a stranding "hot spot"
More marine animals come ashore alive in this area than anywhere
else in North America.
THE NEED
Why have a marine life center - is there a need?
Each year hundreds of whales, dolphins, seals and sea turtles come
ashore alive and in need of medical care. These animals strand alone,
in pairs, and in larger groups - mass strandings.
The media draws attention to the heart break of mass strandings.
As an example, the stranding of 56 pilot whales on Cape Cod in July
2002 reached media outlets all across the country and around the
world, a fact that is verified by the Executive Director of the
NMLC who gave interviews to the British Broadcast System from the
beach.
But the media does not cover the single strandings so the public
is generally unaware of the extent of the problem. At the height
of the cetacean stranding season on Cape Cod (late fall to spring),
stranding network staff and volunteers respond to calls about animals
on the beach five days out of seven. Most calls concern single animals.
In most cetacean stranding seasons, by mid-January all the rehabilitation
pools in aquaria from Boston to Baltimore are full. Any sick or
injured animals that come ashore after that point, even though they
may be good rehab candidates, must be euthanized, despite the work
and caring of stranding networks,
The NMLC intends to change that situation by having a staff and
facilities - multiple pools of appropriate sizes - dedicated full-time,
year-round to marine animal rehabilitation.
 The
number of marine animals that strand on New England coasts is increasing.
The federal Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 and the Oceans
Act of 1992 mandate the rescue and rehabilitation of marine mammals
and sea turtles, and require that "maximum educational and
scientific benefits [be derived] from stranded mammals."
However, the legislation does not provide the necessary facilities
or funding to meet that mandate. The allocation of $800,000 for
the NMLC approved by Congress was the first money voted for a facility.
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