Marine Mammal Stock Assessment Reports (SARs)

Overview | Draft Reports | Reports by Region | Reports by Species/Stock

Humpback Whale fluke (Megaptera novaeangliae) Photo: NOAA

Overview
On April 30, 1994, Public Law 103-238 was enacted allowing significant changes to provisions within the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA). Interactions between marine mammals and commercial fisheries are now addressed under three new Sections. This regime replaced the interim exemption that had regulated fisheries-related incidental takes since 1988. Section 117: Stock Assessments requires the establishment of three regional scientific review groups to advise and report on the status of marine mammal stocks within Alaskan waters, along the Pacific Coast (including Hawaii), and the Atlantic Coast (including the Gulf of Mexico).

Each stock assessment includes:

• a description of the stock's geographic range
• a "minimum population estimate"
• current population trends
• current and maximum net productivity rates
• "optimum sustainable population" levels and allowable removal levels
• estimates of annual human-caused mortality and serious injury through interactions with commercial fisheries and subsistence hunters.

This data is used to evaluate the progress of each fishery in reducing its incidental mortality and serious injury to insignificant levels approaching a zero mortality and serious injury rate.

Clymene Dolphins (Stenella clymene) Photo: NOAA

Prior to 1994, many marine mammals stocks in U.S. waters had never been clearly identified or described, making sound management decisions difficult to achieve. Since that time, NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has prepared approximately 155 reports annually on the status of cetacean and pinniped stocks in U.S. waters:

• ~65 annual stock reports in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico,
• ~65 annual stock reports along the Pacific Coast of the continental United States and Hawaii, and
• ~25 annual stock reports in Alaska and the North Pacific.

In addition, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) prepares 10 reports for stocks of manatees, polar bears, sea otters and walrus in U.S. waters.

NMFS also formed three independent regional Scientific Review Groups representing Alaska, the Pacific Coast (including Hawaii), and the Atlantic Coast (including the Gulf of Mexico) to advise NMFS and FWS on the status of stocks and on uncertainties and research needs for stocks, impacts to stocks, and methods to reduce incidental mortality of marine mammals incidental to fishing operations.

More Information

• Revisions to Guidelines for Assessing Marine Mammal Stocks (GAMMS II) [pdf]. June 2005.
• NMFS. 2004. A Requirements Plan for Improving the Understanding of the Status of U.S. Protected Marine Species [pdf] [6.1 MB]. Report of the NOAA Fisheries National Task Force for Improving Marine Mammal and Turtle Stock Assessments. U.S. Dep. Commerce, NOAA Tech. Memo. NMFS-F/SPO-63, 112 p.
• Stock Assessment Report Brochure [pdf]. April 2004.
• Wade, Paul R. and Angliss, Robyn P. 1996. Report of the Guidelines for Assessing Marine Mammal Stocks (GAMMS) Workshop. Seattle, WA. NOAA Tech. Memo. NMFS-OPR-12, 93p.
  --Guidelines for preparing the Stock Assessment Reports (Appendix II) (PBR guidelines)
• Barlow, Jay, Steven L. Swartz, Thomas C. Eagle, and Paul R. Wade. 1995. U.S. Marine Mammal Stock Assessments: Guidelines for Preparation, Background, and a Summary of the 1995 Assessments [pdf]. U.S. Dep. Commer., NOAA Tech. Memo. NMFS-OPR-6, 73 p.