STOCK DEFINITION AND GEOGRAPHIC RANGE

• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1998
• Subjects: Indian; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.295.91; http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pdfs/sars/ao1998dobn-wnos.pdf

There are two hematologically and morphologically distinct bottlenose dolphin ecotypes (Duffield et al. 1983; Duffield 1986) which correspond to a shallow, warm water ecotype and a deep, cold water ecotype; both ecotypes have been shown to inhabit waters in the western North Atlantic Ocean (Hersh and Duffield 1990; Mead and Potter 1995; Curry and Smith 1997). Bottlenose dolphins which had stranded alive in the western North Atlantic in areas with direct access to deep oceanic waters had hemoglobin profiles which matched that of the deep, cold water ecotype (Hersh and Duffield 1990). Hersh and Duffield (1990) also described morphological differences between the deep, cold water ecotype dolphins and dolphins with hematological profiles matching the shallow, warm water ecotype which had stranded in the Indian/Banana River in Florida. Based on the distribution of sightings during ship-based surveys (Figure 1) and survey personnel observations (NMFS unpublished data), the western North Atlantic offshore stock is believed to consist of bottlenose dolphins corresponding to the hematologically and morphologically distinct deep, cold