Development of Respiratory Sampling to Assess Stress Responses in North Atlantic Right Whales
نویسندگان
چکیده
Our primary long-term goal is to assess whether respiratory sample ("blow") analysis can be developed as a practical method of physiological stress assessment in free-living cetaceans. Few methods exist for assessment of physiological stress levels of free-swimming cetaceans (Amaral 2010, ONR 2010). Respiratory samples (blow) can potentially be collected from targeted individuals and from large numbers of whales. Additionally, blow sampling is non-invasive and should not alter the stress response being measured, and it can be employed multiple times on known individual whales. Overall, blow may offer a novel method for assessment of short-term stress (minutes/hours) in cetaceans, and may offer a useful complement to existing fecal-sampling methods (Rolland et al. 2005, Hunt et al. 2006).
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