STRIPED DOLPHIN (Stenella coeruleoalba): Western North Atlantic Stock

• Main Authors: Stock Definition, Geographic Range
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2000
• Subjects: Archer; The Gully; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.227.6812; http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/nefsc/publications/tm/tm182/pdfs/242.pdf

The striped dolphin, Stenella coeruleoalba, is distributed worldwide in warm-temperate to tropical seas (Archer and Perrin 1997). Striped dolphins are found in the western North Atlantic from Nova Scotia south to at least Jamaica and in the Gulf of Mexico. In general, striped dolphins appear to prefer continental slope waters offshore to the Gulf Stream (Leatherwood et al. 1976; Perrin et al. 1994; Schmidly 1981). There is very little information concerning striped dolphin stock structure in the western North Atlantic (Archer and Perrin 1997). In waters off the northeastern USA coast, striped dolphins are distributed along the continental shelf edge from Cape Hatteras to the southern margin of Georges Bank, and also occur offshore over the continental slope and rise in the mid-Atlantic region (CETAP 1982). Continental shelf edge sightings in this program were generally centered along the 1,000 m depth contour in all seasons (CETAP 1982). During 1990 and 1991 cetacean habitat-use surveys, striped dolphins were associated with the Gulf Stream north wall and warm-core ring features (Waring et al. 1992). Striped dolphins seen in a survey of the New England Sea Mounts (Palka 1997) were in waters that were between 20 0 and 27 0 C and deeper than 900 m. Although striped dolphins are considered to be uncommon in Canadian Atlantic waters (Baird et al. 1993), recent summer sightings (2-125 individuals) in the deeper and warmer waters of the Gully (submarine canyon off eastern Nova Scotia shelf) suggest that this region may be an important part of their range (Gowans and Whitehead 1995; Baird et al. 1997). POPULATION SIZE Total numbers of striped dolphins off the USA or Canadian Atlantic coast are unknown, although four estimates from selected regions of the habitat do exist for select time periods. Sightings were almost exclusively in the continental shelf edge and continental slope areas west of Georges Bank (Figure 1). An abundance of 36,780 striped dolphins (CV=0.27) was estimated from an aerial survey