STOCK DEFINITION AND GEOGRAPHIC RANGE

• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2003
• Subjects: Newfoundland; Svalbard; Canada; Greenland; Davis Strait; Denmark Strait; hooded seal; Northwest Atlantic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.228.3578; http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/nefsc/publications/tm/tm182/pdfs/121.pdf

1988; Stenson et al. 1996). Hooded seals tend to wander far out of their range and have been seen as far south as Puerto Rico (Mignucci-Giannoni and Odell 2001), with increased occurrences from Maine to Florida. These appearances usually occur between January and May in New England waters, and in summer and autumn off the Southeast USA coast and in the Caribbean (McAlpine et al. 1999; Harris et al. 2001; Mignucci-Giannoni and Odell 2001). Although it is not known which stock these seals come from, it is known that during spring, the Northwest Atlantic stock of hooded seals are at their southern most point of migration in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The world’s hooded seal population is divided into three separate stocks, each identified with a specific breeding site (Lavigne and Kovacs 1988; Stenson et al. 1996). One stock, which whelps off the coast of eastern Canada, is divided into two breeding herds (Front and Gulf) which breed on the pack ice. The Front herd (largest) breeds off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Gulf herd breeds in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The second stock breeds in the Davis Strait, and the third stock occurs on the West Ice off eastern Greenland. Hooded seals are a highly migratory species. Hooded seals remain on the Newfoundland continental shelf during winter/spring (Stenson et al. 1996). Breeding occurs at about the same time in March for each stock. Adults from all stocks then assemble in the Denmark Strait to molt between late June and August (King 1983; Anon 1995), and following this, the seals disperse widely. Some move south and west around the southern tip of Greenland, and then north along the west coast of Greenland. Others move to the east and north between Greenland and Svalbard during late summer and early fall (Lavigne and Kovacs 1988). Little else is known about the activities of hooded seals during the rest of the year until they assemble again in February for breeding.