KILLER WHALE (Orcinus orca): Northern Gulf of Mexico Stock STOCK DEFINITION AND GEOGRAPHIC RANGE

• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2005
• Subjects: POPULATION SIZE; Reeves; Killer Whale; Orca; Orcinus orca; Killer whale
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.637.3632; http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pdfs/sars/ao2005whki-gmxn.pdf

The killer whale is distributed worldwide from tropical to polar regions (Leatherwood and Reeves 1983). Sightings of these animals in the northern Gulf of Mexico during 1951-1995 occurred primarily in oceanic waters ranging from 256 to 2,652m (averaging 1,242m) in the north-central Gulf of Mexico (O’Sullivan and Mullin 1997). Despite extensive shelf surveys (O’Sullivan and Mullin 1997), no killer whales have been reported on the Gulf of Mexico shelf waters other than those reported in 1921, 1985 and 1987 by Katona et al. (1988). Killer whales were seen only in the summer during