MAER – Meet The Team

To report any live or dead marine animal entanglements, call 1-800-900-3622 or hail the USCG on VHF 16.

Scott Landry
Director, Marine Animal Entanglement Response Program

Scott worked as a naturalist in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and particularly within the Gulf of Maine for many years before joining the CCS Whale Disentanglement Team more than 20 years ago. In addition to being a First Responder for the team, Scott conducts research on the problem of entanglement. Scott holds a B.A. degree in Anthropology from the University of Massachusetts and a Graduate Certificate in Science Illustration from the University of California-Santa Cruz.

David Mattila
Coordinator, Global Whale Entanglement Response Network

David Mattila is currently “shared” staff with the Secretariat of the International Whaling Commission and the Center for Coastal Studies, where he assists with several global conservation and management issues, including large whale entanglement and ship strike mitigation initiatives. Between 2001 and 2011 he worked as the Science and Rescue Coordinator for NOAA’s Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary. He has a long history of international whale work, including as a principal coordinator of two Ocean-wide, international collaborative studies of humpback whales. He is also a founding member of the International Committee on Marine Mammal Protected Areas, which is now also an IUCN Task Force. Since 1984 he has worked with the large whale entanglement issue, helping to develop unique rescue tools, techniques and training programs. He helped to establish, and was the first coordinator of the large whale disentanglement network along the Atlantic coast of the United States (1996) and later, upon moving to Hawaii, he helped to set up the network there. He has convened four international (IWC) workshops on this topic, which included participation by the directors of all existing National entanglement response networks around the World. Beginning in 2012 he has helped to train over 1,200 participants from 34 countries.

Bob Lynch
Rescue Operations Manager

Bob grew up in the hills of western Massachusetts and often vacationed to the Cape as a child. He completed a B.S. in Zoology at the University of New Hampshire, and in 2010 joined CCS as an intern for the Right Whale Program. In 2011, he stayed on with the Center by becoming a member of the aerial survey and Marine Animal Entanglement Response (MAER) teams, before taking a hiatus to work on disentanglement and pinniped rehab in California and aerial surveys in the Alaskan Arctic. In 2014, Bob returned to CCS and rejoined the MAER team full-time.

Paulette Durazo
Rescue Assistant

Paulette is from Mexico. She received her Bachelor in Oceanography and her Master’s degree in a comparative analysis of temporal and spatial variations of harbor seal’s diet in Mexico at the Marine Science Faculty of Universidad Autonoma de Baja California. After graduating from her master’s studies she spent her winters working as a Naturalist in Baja California Sur, Mx.  She participated as part of the gray whale research team for Laguna San Ignacio Ecosystem Science Program conducting photo identification and as survey’s observer.  In April of 2019, she joined the Center for Coastal Studies as part of the Marine Animal Entanglement Response team and as a Research Assistant for the Humpback Whale Studies.

Lisa Sette
Rescue Assistant/Seal Project Manager

Biologist Lisa Sette joined CCS in 2007 as part of the Marine Animal Entanglement Response team. In 2008 she began collaborative work that is still underway today monitoring southeastern Massachusetts harbor and gray seal population’s distribution, diet and the occurrence of entanglement. Lisa has worked with the Shoals Marine Lab as a seal research mentor for the summer marine mammal undergraduate research internship program since 2017. She is also a founding member of the Northwest Atlantic Seal Research Consortium (NASRC) and is currently a steering committee member.