If you receive regular communications from us, then you are an active volunteer in our system (you may want to check your spam folder for these emails if you are not sure, or check your settings to ensure you can receive our emails).

The reality of our work is that incidents are sporadic and unpredictable in nature, therefore so is our need for volunteers. Unlike organizations who respond to incidents involving terrestrial animals, those involving marine animals are less frequent. MARS gets approximately 400-600 calls per year involving 100-300 animals for which some kind of responsemay be needed. As a result, the frequency with which you get called will depend on a number of things, including your location relative to incidents that come up, the type of response support that is needed, and also the skills or training that you have. Because the occurrence, timing and location of incidents are unpredictable, there are volunteers in our system that will never get a call. From the animal perspective, this is a good thing as it means no animals were in trouble or found deceased in your area! With that being said, it is important for us to have volunteers throughout the Maritime Provinces, as we never know when or where an animal will pop up that needs our help or requires investigation. Please know that we appreciate you, even if you rarely hear from us!  If you are ever unsure about your volunteer status, please feel free to reach out.

First of all, thank you for your help. While it has been a part of our procedures to log hours on your behalf, sometimes we get busy with responses and may be slow to update this information. If you believe that your volunteer hours are incorrectly represented on your Better Impact profile, please reach out and we will fix them. You also have the ability to log your own hours, and we would encourage you to do so to avoid these issues.

Every month we randomly select ~15 volunteers who live in the Halifax area (HRM) to be on our “rotation”. This area has the largest concentration of MARS volunteers, and we simply cannot reach out to everyone for each incident. This rotation is our attempt to give everyone an equal chance of being called to support response efforts for an incident in the area. Being on the rotation for a given month does NOT guarantee being called for an incident, and not being on the rotation for a month does not mean that you would never be called – it simply means that we are trying to spread the love <3.

This is a great question, and one that doesn’t have a simple answer. There are many reasons why you may not hear from us in relation to a response, even if it is located near you. Some of these reasons include: another volunteer who was also contacted has already replied to support the response and filled the need, time and/or situation constraints (such as location, tide changes, or daylight hours), your address is incorrect in our system, our emails are going to your junk mail, or we needed specialized skills for the response. If this happens to you, please understand that this does not mean that you will not be contacted in the future for other incidents near you! We need and appreciate you.

In addition to response-related volunteering, MARS often requires help at community outreach events – these can be a great opportunity to learn more about MARS and spread the word about what we do. From time to time, we may have special projects that may require a specific skill set and we will reach out to our volunteer base (e.g., database development, graphic design etc.). We recognize that we have an amazing, dedicated and skilled group of volunteers and we would love to be able to use more of the skills that our volunteers have to offer!

We work across the Maritime Provinces (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island). When we receive a call that requires assistance from one of our volunteers, our Responders compare the location of the incident to our list of volunteer locations. Typically we try to find volunteers that are within a 30-45 minute drive of the incident, in order to facilitate fast action on the part of our volunteers while decreasing the stress / distance of requests that we make. Be aware that this also means that if there are a lot of volunteers within that 30 minute radius, volunteers that are closer may be contacted preferentially. Alternatively, in some areas where volunteers are less plentiful they may occasionally be asked if they are willing to travel farther. Regardless, it is critical that you keep your address up to date in Better Impact (with your physical location; not a PO box) to facilitate this process and ensure accurate records.

Thank you so much for your efforts so far! It is always worth reviewing the information which you have learned through the courses, so that you can feel confident in your response capacity at any time. For example, you may find it useful to review the course materials annually.

Occasionally there are opportunities to volunteer in other ways with our organization as well, which come with opportunities to learn more (for example, at an event). Keep your eyes open for meetings, newsletters, and any other communication that can provide you with further opportunities for training and participation.

This is a great question, and an important one to understand. There are many ways that volunteers may provide support during a response operation.

Essentially, anytime that someone sees a distressed or deceased marine animal they are encouraged to call us on the MARS hotline to let us know. MARS Hotline Operators gather as much information as they can from the initial phone call, and then MARS Responders assess the best way to respond from there.  These incidents are always situation-specific. Depending on the response plan, we often need volunteers that are located near the incident to help us in the response. Here are a few examples of what that might look like:

1. A caller has reported a live baby seal on the beach. Our Responders have determined that the pup requires additional monitoring to determine its overall health prior to making further decisions. They will contact a few nearby volunteers to ask if any of them are available to check out the animal, and then report back on the situation, its condition, any concerns etc.
2. A caller has reported a dolphin carcass on the beach. By looking at photos submitted by the caller MARS Responders have determined that it is not possible to collect the carcass due to the advanced state of decomposition, but it would still be good to obtain further documentation for research and monitoring purposes. The MARS Responder would check to see which volunteers live close to the incident, and then reach out to see if anyone is available. In this situation, an available volunteer would be asked to take more photos, measurements, and possibly some simple samples from the animal (additional instructions would be provided for sampling).

There are several other ways in which volunteers are engaged, including assisting MARS Responders with securing animals or helping to lift or move a carcass. Even during more complex situations (e.g., live strandings, necropsies of large whales etc.), which rely primarily on highly-trained personnel, volunteers can still be very important to support these operations with activities such as data and photo collection, crowd control etc.

No. Being a MARS volunteer does not mean you are automatically authorized to respond to these incidents on your own, regardless of your training. Authorization will only be extended if you are asked to support response under the direct request of MARS personnel. Any response actions undertaken without MARS’ direction or knowledge are illegal, and potentially dangerous to both yourself and the animal.

Marine animals are protected under the Marine Mammal Regulations enabled by the Fisheries Act and, for a subset of species, the Species at Risk Act (SARA). Under these Acts, it is illegal for unauthorized individuals in Canada to approach, touch, handle, disturb, feed and harass marine animals or to possess any of their parts. Permits are required for these activities. Having both federally-issued Fisheries Act and SARA permits, MARS is legally authorized by the Government of Canada to respond to incidents involving marine animals in the Maritime Provinces and surrounding waters, including those species protected under SARA.

MARS provides training to our volunteers to help them understand how they can best be prepared to support us in different situations, as untrained individuals may put their own and the animal’s health and safety at risk.