U.S. Pacific Marine Mammal Stock Assessments - 2002

This report presents revised stock assessments for 13 Pacific marine mammal stocks under NMFS jurisdiction. Information on the remaining 44 Pacific region stocks is reprinted without revision and also appears in the 2001 reports (Carretta et al. 2001). In the 2002 stock assessments, there are now four stocks of harbor porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) occurring in California waters where previously there had been two. These new stock boundaries reflect recent genetic analyses on the small-scale population structure of harbor porpoise in the eastern North Pacific (Chivers et al. 2002).