Purchase a 'Protect Florida Whales' Plate and Help Build the World's First Marine Mammal Teaching Hospital With your support, construction will begin soon on the new HARBOR BRANCH Marine Mammal Teaching Hospital (MMTH). The facility, which will be the first of its kind in the world, has been designed to fill urgent educational and animal care needs in Florida. The new complex will allow for the treatment and long-term care of sick and injured whales, dolphins and manatees, while supporting marine mammal research and new accredited education opportunities. Hundreds of strandings of marine mammal in recent years, as well as a recent and as yet unexplained increase in whale strandings along Florida's coast emphasize the need for further research and the new hospital. The majority of these tragedies occur along Florida's East Coast where there are currently no long-term marine mammal care facilities. HARBOR BRANCH has been responding to marine mammal strandings since 1997, and inspiration for the new facility grew in part out of frustration with the lack of adequate resources and facilities needed to provide critical care and long-term rehabilitation for the increasing number rescued animals. Also, due to the increasing threats of new emerging infectious disease posed by stranded animals, many of the marine parks are no longer able to play a role in the rehabilitation of these animals without posing serious health risks to their public display collections. Ironically, says Dr. Greg Bossart, Director of the Division of Marine Mammal Research and Conservation at HARBOR BRANCH, there are no permanent long-term care facilities besides HARBOR BRANCH on the entire Eastern Seaboard. This is despite the fact that, according to data from the National Marine Fisheries Service, four times as many strandings occur on Florida's east coast as on its west coast, where several rescue and rehabilitation facilities do exist. Dolphins in the Indian River Lagoon and elsewhere face many other serious challenges to their health as a large percentage of those observed by HARBOR BRANCH researchers show skin lesions and other serious signs of disease. There are indications that degraded water quality in the region might be to blame for such environmental abnormalities and increasing deaths. Since its inception in 1997, the HARBOR BRANCH Marine Mammal division has worked to reduce the impact of such threats to dolphins, whales, and manatees, and during that time the emergency team has responded to more than 100 marine mammal rescue calls. Current facilities to handle rescues and other needs include a small critical care pool and a state-of-the-art dolphin ambulance, as well as a necropsy lab, for which the National Marine Fisheries Service has recently awarded HARBOR BRANCH a $70,000 grant to complete. The necropsy lab allows careful study of marine mammals that do die so that their loss can lead to a better understanding of the many problems facing marine mammals in Florida waters. "We've done a lot with very little and we are seeing the need to do much more," says Steve McCulloch, Division Director of HARBOR BRANCH's Dolphin Research program. The first phase of new construction on the MMTH--targeted for later this year--will make doing more possible by expanding HARBOR BRANCH resources to include three new quarantine pools. Certain pools will be equipped with hydraulic bottoms that can be raised to bring animals out of the water for medical care and treatment. The $10 million facility will be constructed on the HBOI campus. Like teaching hospitals for medical doctors, the MMTH will employ cutting-edge technology and deliver an unrivaled level of life-saving care. The facility will also act as an incubator for new marine mammal research, enabling advances by both HARBOR BRANCH and visiting scientists in marine mammal care and conservation. Visitors will be welcome at the hospital, which will have a natural setting with mangroves surrounding a large main lagoon pool and a tiered garden area that will be part of an environmentally sound biological water filtration system. Other facilities will include a surgical theater with distance learning technologies so that work with specific animals can be broadcast to teach and train others around the globe. The teaching hospital will also have a more direct global impact through on-site education programs including university-level courses. At the complex, marine mammal veterinarians and other caregivers from around the state and around the world will be trained in the latest marine mammal techniques so that they can return to their home areas to protect and save animals there. The Marine Mammal Division is now working diligently to raise the roughly $5 million needed to begin the first new phase of construction on the facility on schedule. The ultimate goal is to raise $10 million dollars to complete the facility and an additional $10 million as an endowment to provide long-term support for operating expenses. With your purchase of a 'Protect Florida Whale' plate, ninety percent of the funds will be used to support HARBOR BRANCH's efforts to build the hospital and to study and protect the more than a dozen species of whales that can be found in Florida's coastal waters. In addition, ten percent of plate sale funds will go to the Wyland Foundation to support educational programs in Florida that promote marine mammal and ocean conservation. Wyland, whose famous whale murals can be seen around the world, designed the whale plate. The Wyland Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that inspires people to care more about our oceans and the marine life within. Founded in 1993, the foundation encourages involvement in ocean conservation through classroom education programs, art and scientific research scholarships, and life-size art in public places.