i
Mortality and serious injury determinations for baleen whale stocks along the United States eastern seaboard and adjacent Canadian maritimes, 2003-2007
-
2009
-
[PDF-863.82 KB]
Details:
-
Alternative Title:Baleen whale stocks along the United States eastern seaboard and adjacent Canadian maritimes, 2003-2007
-
Personal Author:
-
Corporate Authors:
-
NOAA Program & Office:
-
Description:"The Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) has developed criteria to evaluate reports of human-caused injury and mortality to large whales. The criteria minimize the identification of false positive human-caused mortalities and serious injuries, and therefore provide a minimum value of human impact to whale stocks. Serious injury is defined as an injury that is likely to lead to death. This report describes determinations made for reports received from 2003 through 2007 involving right (Eubalaena glacialis), humpback (Megaptera novaeangliae), fin (Balaenoptera physalus), sei (B. borealis), blue (B. musculus), minke (B. acutorostrata) and Bryde's (B. edeni) whales observed along the eastern seaboard of the United States and adjacent Canadian Maritimes. A total of 537 unique large whale events were verified during the period, including carcasses (both beached and at-sea) and live whales. We confirmed 153 unique entanglement, 52 ship strike, and 349 mortality events. Twenty-one (14%) of the entanglements and 30 (58%) of the ship strikes were fatal. Serious injury was sustained in 16 (10%) of the entanglement events and in 2 (4%) of the confirmed ship strikes. Twenty-four (16%) of the entanglements and five (10%) of the ship strike events did not have adequate documentation to determine if serious injury occurred. Seventy-six (50%) of the entanglement events and 13 (25%) of the ship strike events did not cause serious injury or death. Of the 349 confirmed mortalities, 280 (80%) lacked sufficient evidence to determine cause of death. Minke whales had the greatest number of entanglement mortalities (n=9); humpback whales had the highest number of serious injury events resulting from entanglements (n=10); and right whales had the greatest number of ship strike mortalities (n=9) and serious injuries (n=2) from ship strikes. These mortality and serious injury numbers are minimum counts due to poor detection probabilities and inadequate documentation. Thus, the true level of human impact to these stocks is assumed to be greater than that reported here, however the amount greater is unknown"--Abstract.
-
Content Notes:by Allison H. Glass, Timothy V.N. Cole, and Mendy Garron.
"May 2009."
"Print publication date May 2009; web version posted May 15, 2009"--Document's home page: http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/nefsc/publications/crd/crd0904.
System requirements: Web browser; Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
Includes bibliographical references (page 12).
-
Keywords:
-
Series:
-
Document Type:
-
Place as Subject:
-
Rights Information:Public Domain
-
Compliance:Library
-
Main Document Checksum:
-
Download URL:
-
File Type:
