Christopher Orphanides

U.S. Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico marine mammal stock assessments, 2013

1National Marine Fisheries Service, 166 Water St., Woods Hole, MA 02543 2National Marine Fisheries Service, 75 Virginia Beach Dr., Miami, FL 33149 3National Marine Fisheries Service, 219 Ft. Johnson Rd., Charleston, SC 29412 4National Marine Fisheries Service, 3209 Frederic St., Pascagoula, MS 39567 5Mote Marine Laboratory, 1600 Ken Thompson Pkwy., Sarasota, FL 34236 6Sea World, Inc., 7007 Sea World Dr., Orlando, FL 32821

Estimates of cetacean and pinniped bycatch in the 2009 New England sink gillnet and Mid-Atlantic gillnet fisheries

This series is a secondary scientific series designed to assure the long-term documentation and to enable the timely transmission of research results by Center and/or non-Center researchers, where such results bear upon the research mission of the Center (see the outside back cover for the mission statement). These documents receive internal scientific review, and most receive copy editing. The National Marine Fisheries Service does not endorse any proprietary material, process, or product mentioned in these documents. All documents issued in this series since April 2001, and several documents issued prior to that date, have been copublished in both paper and electronic versions. To access the electronic version of a document in this series, go to http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/nefsc/publications/. The electronic version is available in PDF format to permit printing of a paper copy directly from the Internet. If you do not have Internet access, or if a desired document is one of the pre-April Editorial Treatment: To distribute this report quickly, it has not undergone the normal technical and copy editing by the Northeast Fisheries Science Centers (NEFSCs) Editorial Office as have most other issues in the NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-NE series. Other than the four covers and first two preliminary pages, all writing and editing have been performed by the authors listed within. ABSTRACT This report provides incidental take estimates for five marine mammal species observed taken in the 2009 New England sink gillnet (NESG) and Mid-Atlantic gillnet (MAG) fisheries and documents the methodology used to produce the estimates. The estimated incidental takes in the 2009 NSEG fishery were 43 (CV = 77%) common dolphins (Delphinis delphis), 591 (CV = 23%) harbor porpoises (Phocoena phocoena), 1063 (CV = 26%) gray seals (Halichoerus grypus), 516 (CV = 28%) harbor seals (Phoca vitulina), and 415 (CV = 27%) harp seals (Phoca groenlandica). For the MAG fishery, the estimated 2009 incidental takes were 201 (CV = 55%) harbor porpoises, 70 (CV = 69%) harp seals, and 47 (CV = 68%) harbor seals.