海棲哺乳類の保全?管押のための調査?解析手法

摘要

Identification of individual animals based on marking is important for conservation and management studies of marine mammals because it provides the valuable biological information such as the life-history parameters, behaviors, movements and population size. This paper summarized three marking methods applied to marine mammals: (1) natural marking, (2) tagging and (3) branding. Because of each method has both advantage and disadvantage, such as durability, visibility and effect of marks on animals, careful considerations on methods and objectives of the studies will be needed when applying these methods for respective species or populations.