Ethics

Send Ethics questions and inquiries to the Society’s Ethics committee

  • Code of Professional Ethics for the Society of Marine Mammalogy
    This comprehensive code of professional ethics, produced by the Society’s Ethics Committee and accepted by the Society in the mid-year ballot of 2013 covers professional conduct, human and animal ethics, information dissemination and authorship and the use of robust science in evidence based management.
  • Code of Conduct for the SMM Conference
  • Guidelines for the Treatment of Marine Mammals in Field Research
    Guidelines intended to reflect internationally acceptable and scientifically valid approaches to the handling and treatment of marine mammals in field research.
  • Questions of ethics and inquiries and suspicion of violation of ethics may be reported to either the President, the President-Elect or the Chair of the Ethics Committee.  The President and the Board decide whether the violation has merit and should be investigated. The Ethics Committee is normally tasked with investigating ethics violations and reports back to the Board for consideration and final assessment.

  • Humane Killing of Marine Mammals
    A working group to use scientific expertise within the Society to develop a list of considerations and best practices that should be taken into account whenever a marine mammal is deliberately killed is currently being formed. We also hosted a panel discussion on the humane killing of marine mammals at the biennial conference at our biennial conference in New Zealand in 2013.