NOAA Fisheries has released the 2019 Report of Marine Mammal Strandings in the United States: National Overview, and five regional overviews. They are the third installment in a series of annual stranding reports compiled by the NOAA Fisheries’ Office of Protected Resources, Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program.
In 2019, there were a total of 7,719 confirmed cetacean (whale, dolphin, and porpoise) and pinniped (seal and sea lion) strandings in the United States. These overviews detail marine mammal stranding rates, trends, and activities in the United States for calendar year 2019. Overviews for calendar years 2017 and 2018 are also available.
NOAA Fisheries declared three new Unusual Mortality Event investigations in 2019:
The Alaska Ice Seal UME was formally declared in 2019, but included ice seal (bearded, ringed, and spotted seal) strandings that occurred in the Bering and Chukchi seas beginning in June 2018.
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