NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service today announced that it is seeking comments by Monday, Sept. 26 on draft revisions to the Guidelines for Preparing Stock Assessment Reports under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The MMPA requires NMFS and the Fish and Wildlife Service to prepare stock assessments for each stock of marine mammals occurring in U.S. waters.
Potential revisions pertain to incorporation and reference of a procedural directive on reviewing and designating stocks and issuing stock assessment reports, calculation of minimum population abundance in post-survey years, addressing sources of bias, designating stocks as strategic and related recovery factors, improving language related to quantifying and including unobserved mortality and serious injury, the inclusion and incorporation of information on climate change, biologically important areas, and habitat issues, clarification of expectations on peer review of report information, and data sources and criteria used for documenting human-caused mortality and serious injury.
