23M046 Aquatic Animal Virtopsy Lab: Health Assessment of Marine Tetrapods

Since 2014, our team has applied a cutting-edge technique named ""virtopsy"" on local Cetacean Stranding Investigation. This technique was later extended to the research on stranded sea turtles since 2019. This technique enhances better understanding and gives insights into health conditions and life history of the stranded aquatic animals, and their injuries and deaths caused by human interactions. The collected data enable assessment of aquatic animals' health and provide an important reference to the development of a unique centralised database and long-term strategies for conservation of aquatic animals. Such a complete ecosystem indicator may eventually support the conservation and policy decision for all oceans, leading to an "One Ocean-One Health" paradigm.