Revised 12/04/2012 SPERM WHALE (Physeter macrocephalus):

• Main Authors: Stock Definition, Geographic Range
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Bering Sea; Pacific; Physeter macrocephalus; Sperm whale
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.295.50; http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pdfs/sars/po2012whsp-cow.pdf

Sperm whales are distributed across the entire North Pacific and into the southern Bering Sea in summer, but the majority are thought to be south of 40 o N in winter (Rice 1974; Rice 1989; Gosho et al. 1984; Miyashita et al. 1995). The International Whaling Commission (IWC) historically divided the North Pacific into two management regions (Donovan 1991) defined by a zig-zag line which starts at 150 o W at the equator, is 160 o W between 40-50 o N, and ends up at 180 o W north of 50 o N; however, the IWC has not reviewed this stock boundary recently (Donovan 1991). Sperm whales are found year-round in