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The Application Of Gis And Spatiotemporal Analyses To Investigations Of Unusual Marine Mammal Strandings And Mortality Events, Stephanie A. Norman, Jessie Huggins, Tim E. Carpenter, James T. Case, Dyanna M. Lambourn, Jim Rice, John Calambokidis, Joseph K. Gaydos, M. Bradley Hanson, Deborah A. Duffield, Sandra Dubpernell, Susan Berta, Matt Klope

United States Department of Commerce: Staff Publications

In 2006–2007, an unusually high number of harbor porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) stranded along the Washington and Oregon coastlines. Spatiotemporal analyses were used to examine their ability to detect clusters of porpoise strandings during an unusualmortality event (UME) in the Pacific Northwest using stranding location data. Strandings were evaluated as two separate populations, outer coast and inland waters. The presence of global clustering was evaluated using the Knox spatiotemporal test, and the presence of local clusters was investigated using a spatiotemporal scan statistic (space–time permutation). There was evidence of global clustering, but no local clustering, supporting the hypothesis that …