Baleen whale stocks along the eastern seaboard of the United States, 2000-2004

Northeast Fisheries Science Center (U.S.)

"The Northeast Fisheries Science Center has developed protocols for determining large whale serious injuries and human-caused mortalities. This report describes determinations made for right, humpback, fin, sei, blue, minke and Brydes whale events that occurred from 2000 through 2004 along the eastern seaboard of the United States. A total of 417 unique large whale events were reported during the period, including both carcasses stranded on beaches and sighted at sea. These included 171 entanglement reports and 42 reports of ship strikes. We were able to verify 147 entanglement events, 29 ship strikes, and 276 mortalities. Entanglements were identified as the cause of 27 whale deaths and ship strikes the cause of 21. Entanglements were determined to have caused serious injury in 18 events. Minke whales had the greatest number of entanglement mortalities (12). Humpback whales had the highest number of serious injury events resulting from entanglements (11) and the most incidents of ship strike mortalities (7). Right whales had six mortalities from ship strikes and fin whales had five. No serious injuries resulting from ship strikes were confirmed for any species. These human-caused mortality and serious injury rates represent the minimum levels of impact to these stocks. Procedures and methods for estimating actual serious injury and mortality rates have yet to be developed"--Abstract.

Professional Paper

National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS)