NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service today announced the availability of revised Guidelines for Preparing Stock Assessment Reports Pursuant to the Marine Mammal Protection Act (NMFS Procedural Directive).
The update follows a determination in 2020 that revisions were warranted, and implements major revisions related to the incorporation of other NMFS Procedural Directives, calculating the minimum population abundance in post-survey years and addressing sources of bias in making such calculations, designating stocks as strategic, quantifying and including unobserved mortality and serious injury, information on ‘‘other factors,’’ such as climate change, biologically important areas, and habitat issues, peer-review, quality assurance, and quality control, and identifying data sources and criteria used for documenting human-caused mortality and serious injury.
