The Society’s Education Committee updates and monitors the Wikipedia articles for each marine mammal species. The Wikipedia project makes a significant difference in disseminating accurate information about marine mammals to the general public. It also is a great opportunity for students and early career scientists to expand their knowledge. As Wikipedia’s content creation is open to the public, errors in the Wikipedia articles can and will arise from time to time, so our team is doing quarterly updates and reviews of SMM marine mammal pages.
Reviews and updates are thorough and focus on the following:
- Is the information accurate?
- Is the information current?
- Are there any missing citations?
- Does the information cover the entire species range? Naturally, there might be more information from one study site or region but data deficiencies or gaps are noted.
- Is there relevant information from popular culture or media?
- Are there regional or cultural descriptions or interesting anecdotes?
- Are there any controversies, legislative (international or national) or international rulings?
Our experts continue to add new species and update existing ones as new information becomes available. We are looking for more students to edit pages, and expert scientists to review students’ edited work. If you would like to participate in this effort, please contact the Education Committee Wikipedia curator at wikipedia@marinemammalscience.org!
We would like to thank experts in the field who have helped develop these species fact sheets and give a special thank you to Uko Gorter for providing illustrations for each species. Click here to check out the marine mammal Wikipedia pages SMM is editing.