Phocoena phocoena

Temperate and ice-free boreal zone of northern hemisphere; summer visitor to the productive fringes of the Arctic Ocean (Gaskin 1992; Suydam and George, 1992, Can. Field-Nat. 106:489-492); isolated population in the Black Sea; south to Senegal in the eastern Atlantic. Has disappeared from parts of the Baltic Sea, the southern North Sea, and portions of the central California coast (see Read et al. 1993). There are two stranding records from Florida during the 1980s (Smithsonian strandings database) and one in 2003 (NE Regional Office/NMFS strandings and entanglement database) (ASM 2025).

Mortality due to entanglement and entrapment in commercial fishing gear may contribute to depletion of local populations in western Greenland, Gulf of St. Lawrence, Newfoundland, Bay of Fundy, and Gulf of Maine (Read and Gaskin 1988, Read et al. 1993, Caswell et al. 1998, NMFS 1999), as well as in other parts of the world (IUCN 1991). The average annual mortality estimate for 1992-1997 for U.S. Atlantic fisheries was 1,749 individuals (NMFS 1999). Bycatch in the Bay of Fundy in Canada was estimated at approximately 100-425 porpoises per year in the early 1990s (Trippel et al. 1996). Bycatch reduction efforts are in operation, and NMFS (1999) regarded these as sufficient to reduce the bycatch to sustainable levels. Habitat modification and environmental contaminants do not appear to be a significant threat in the Gulf of Maine/Bay of Fundy (NMFS 1999).