STOCK DEFINITION AND GEOGRAPHIC RANGE

• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2005
• Subjects: Archer; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.294.8674; http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pdfs/sars/ao2005dost-wn.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 U.S. 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; Mullin and Fulling 2003; Palka et al. Unpub. Ms.; Figure 1). Continental shelf edge sightings in this program were generally centered along