Guidelines for Assessing Marine Mammal Stocks: Report of the GAMMS Workshop, Seattle, Washington

The workshop to review the Guidelines for Assessing Marine Mammal Stocks (GAMMS) was held April 3-5, 1996, in Seattle, WA. The workshop started with a review of elements of the MMPA that are related to the stock assessment process. This included items legislated in the MMPA, and proposed and final rules that NMFS has written to implement the MMPA. These items are summarized in Appendix I. Several major areas of discussion were held at the workshop related to preparing the marine mammal stock assessments. These included defining stocks (4.0), the calculation and reporting of humancaused mortality (5.0), habitat issues (6.0), classifying stocks as strategic (7.0), calculating PBR (8.0), and reviewing, revising, and publishing the stock assessment reports (9.0). Recommendations made by the workshop participants were incorporated into the revised PBR guidelines (Appendix II).