Report of the Working Group on Marine Mammal Ecology (WGMME), 5–8 March 2012, Copenhagen, Denmark.:ICES CM 2012/ACOM:27

• Main Authors: Benjamins, Steven, Wilson, Ben
• Format: Book Part
• Language: English
• Published: International Council for Exploration of the Sea 2012
• Subjects: Population structure; Management unit; indicators; Marine mammals; CETACEANS; Seals; Wave Energy Converter; Harbour porpoise; Lagenorhynchus albirostris; minke whale; North Atlantic; Phocoena phocoena; White-beaked dolphin
• Online Access: https://pure.uhi.ac.uk/en/publications/b16c8cd2-deb5-4ee6-b923-06d145784a9a; https://pureadmin.uhi.ac.uk/ws/files/3673909/wgmme_2012_final_document.pdf; http://www.ices.dk/sites/pub/Publication%20Reports/Expert%20Group%20Report/acom/2012/WGMME/wgmme_2012.pdf

The Working Group on Marine Mammal Ecology (WGMME) met at ICES in Copen-hagen, Denmark from 5 March to 8 March 2012. Eunice Pinn chaired the meeting of 21 participants, representing eight countries. Three ToRs were addressed, the first covered new information on abundance and provided advice on suitable management units while the second looked at potential marine mammal indicators building on the work undertaken last year and also that of OSPAR ICG-COBAM expert group on marine mammals. The third ToR reviewed the development and potential effects of wave energy converters on marine mam-mals and provided recommendations on future research needs. One ToR, on the de-velopment of the seal database, was deferred to 2013. The WG built on the work of the ASCOBANS/HELCOM small cetacean population structure workshop to determine Management Units (MUs) for the more common species as such information is relevant to the development of biodiversity indicators. Based on the available information, there were single MUs in European North Atlan-tic for common dolphin (Delphinus delphis), white beaked dolphin (Lagenorhynchus albirostris), white sided dolphin (Lagenorhynchus acutus) and minke whale (Balaenop-tera acutorostrata). For bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) there are ten separate units closely associated with the mainly resident inshore populations in the European North Atlantic and a separate MU for the wider ranging mainly offshore animals. For harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena), MUs are proposed for the Iberian Pennisula, Bay of Biscay, Celtic Sea (including SW Ireland, Irish Sea and Western Channel) and NW Ireland/West Scotland and the North Sea. The MUs for harbour porpoises will need to be revisited as indicators for MSFD become better defined. It is likely that MUs will need to be aligned with ICES rectangles to enable the calculation of accurate bycatch estimates. For the purposes of MSFD, it maybe that consideration of the spe-cies will need occur at the regional seas level (e.g. North Sea). OSPAR’s ...