Guidelines for Assessing Marine Mammal Stocks (GAMMS)

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

Draft Revisions to Guidelines (GAMMS)

We solicited public comments (comment period closed on March 26, 2012) on draft revisions to the guidelines for preparing marine mammal stock assessment reports.

• Report of the 2011 GAMMS III Workshop (NMFS-OPR-47) [pdf]
  • Proposed revised guidelines: Appendix 4 [pdf]
• Federal Register notice (77 FR 3450)

Background

The Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) provides only general guidance on assessment methods and on the content of the Reports. As a result, NMFS and USFWS have held a series of workshops since 1994 to develop guidelines that may be consistently applied nationally to marine mammal stock assessments.

The most recent workshop was held in 2011 at NMFS Southwest Fisheries Science Center, in La Jolla, CA. We discussed 9 specific topics at the workshop:

1. PBR calculations with outdated abundance estimates
2. Improving stock identification
3. a. Assessment of very small stocks
   b. Assessment of small endangered stocks
4. Apportioning PBR across feeding aggregations, allocating mortality for mixed stocks, and estimating PBR for transboundary stocks
5. Clarifying reporting of mortality and serious injury incidental to commercial fishing
6. When stock declines are sufficient for a strategic designation
7. Assessing stocks without abundance estimates or PBR
8. Characterizing uncertainty in key Stock Assessment Report elements
9. Whether to expand the Stock Assessment Reports to include non-serious injuries and disturbance

Previous Guidelines

• 2005 revisions to guidelines:
  NMFS. 2005. Revisions to Guidelines for Assessing Marine Mammal Stocks (GAMMS II) [pdf]. 24p.
  
  
• 1996 GAMMS workshop report:
  Wade, Paul R. and Angliss, Robyn P. 1996. Report of the Guidelines for Assessing Marine Mammal Stocks (GAMMS) Workshop [pdf]. Seattle, WA. NOAA Tech. Memo. NMFS-OPR-12, 93p.
  • Appendix II: PBR guidelines (p. 51) [pdf]
    
    
• 1995 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.

Updated: April 11, 2012