STOCK DEFINITION AND GEOGRAPHIC RANGE

• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2001
• Subjects: Canada; Mansfield; Nantucket; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.294.4497; http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pdfs/sars/ao2001segr-wn.pdf

The gray seal is found on both sides of the North Atlantic, with three major populations: in eastern Canada; northwestern Europe and the Baltic Sea (Katona et al. 1993). The western North Atlantic population occurs from New England to Labrador and is centered in the Sable Island region of Nova Scotia (Katona et al. 1993; Davies 1957). This stock is separated b y both geography and differences in the breeding season from the eastern Atlantic stock (Bonner 1981). The western North Atlantic stock is distributed and breeds principally in eastern Canadian waters (Mansfield 1966). There are two breeding concentrations in eastern Canada; one at Sable Island, and a second that breeds on the pack ice in the Gulf of St. Lawrence (Hammill et al. 1998). Tagging studies indicate that there is little intermixing between the two breeding groups (Zwanenberg and Bowen 1990), and for management purposes, they are treated as separate p opulations (Mohn and Bowen 1996). However, small num bers of animals and pupping have been observed on several isolated islands along the Maine coast and in Nantucket-Vineyard