Dear MARMAM community, My co-authors and I are pleased to announce our recent publication in PLoS One: "*Assessing fishery interaction on cetaceans stranded along the Italian coastline between 1986 and 2023*".
*The article is fully open access and available here:* https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0330441 **Abstract**Monitoring stranded cetaceans represents a strategic method to assess their health, conservation status, and ecological role in the marine ecosystem. Efficient stranding networks and standardized protocols are essential to monitor this phenomenon and investigate its causes. This study assesses the evidence of fishery interaction on stranded cetacean carcasses found along the Italian coastline from 1986 to 2023. Evidence assessment and *post-mortem *investigation methods evolved over three macro-periods, from non-standardized reporting (1986–2014) to an integrated national stranding network (2015–2019), and finally to the creation of a new standardized, evidence-based diagnostic framework under the EU-funded LIFE DELFI project (LIFE18 NAT/IT/000942) (2020–2023). A total of 5355 cases were selected for this analysis. A literature review and evidence of interaction on stranded carcasses supported the categorization of findings, ranging from case history to pathological observations, allowing the assessment of temporal variation, demographic parameters, geographical distribution, and fishing gear identification. Evidence of fishery interaction was found in 12.89% of the cases (690/5355), with an annual average of 18.15 affected animals, and fishery interaction was identified as the likely cause of death in 10.32% of the cases. The most frequently reported species were *Stenella coeruleoalba* and *Tursiops truncatus*, showing significant differences in fishery interactions, particularly in relation to sex, age class, and geographical distribution. Adult male *Tursiops truncatus* exhibited a higher susceptibility to gillnet interaction in the Adriatic Sea. The results of this study emphasize the importance of standardized *post-mortem* investigations and long-term monitoring to identify risk hotspots, implement species- and region-specific mitigation strategies, and establish threshold values for cetacean conservation. Please feel free to contact me with any questions. Many thanks Guido Dr. Guido Pietroluongo DVM, MSc, PhD Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science (BCA), University of Padova Cetacean strandings Emergency Response Team (CERT) Mediterranean Marine Mammal Tissue Bank (BTMMM) *Please consider the environment before printing this email*
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