Serious injury determinations for baleen whale stocks along the Gulf of Mexico, United States East Coast and Atlantic Canadian Provinces, 2008-2012.

• Main Authors: Cole, Timothy V. N., Henry, Allison
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: U.S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Marine Fisheries Service, Northeast Fisheries Science Center 2015
• Subjects: Baleen whales > Mortality > Effect of human beings on > Atlantic Coast North America > Statistics; Baleen whales > Mortality > Effect of human beings on > Gulf Coast U.S. > Statistics; Balaenoptera physalus; baleen whale; baleen whales; Blue whale; Eubalaena glacialis; Fin whale; Humpback Whale; Megaptera novaeangliae; minke whale; North Atlantic; North Atlantic right whale; Sei Whale
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.7289/v5vd6wdd; https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/4933

The Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) requires the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to estimate annual levels of human - caused mortality and serious injury to marine mammal stocks (section 117) and to categorize commercial fisheries based on their level of incidental mortality and serious injury of marine mammals (section 118). Serious injury (SI) determinations were addressed at NMFS convened workshops in 1997 and 2007 (Angliss and DeMaster 1998; Andersen et al. 2008), and in January 2012 the agency published national guidelines for distinguishing serious from non-serious injuries of marine mammals 1. The resulting SI determinations are combined with anthropogenic mortality values for comparison to each stock's Potential Biological Removal (PBR) in annual marine mammal stock assessment reports (SARs). This report summarizes the SI determinations for baleen whale stocks along the Gulf of Mexico, United States east coast, and Atlantic Canadian Provinces for 2008 through 2012. The stocks we cover include th e North Atlantic right whale ( Eubalaena glacialis), Gulf of Maine humpback whale ( Megaptera novaeangliae), Western North Atlantic fin whale ( Balaenoptera physalus), Nova Scotian sei whale (B. borealis), Western North Atlantic blue whale (B. musculus), Canadian East Coast minke whale (B. acutorostrata), and the Northern Gulf of Mexico Bryde's whale (B. edeni).