2024-23839. Taking and Importing Marine Mammals; Taking Marine Mammals Incidental to Geophysical Surveys Related to Oil and Gas Activities in the Gulf of Mexico

Table 1—Take Analysis

Species	Authorized take	Scaled take 1	Abundance 2	Percent abundance
Rice's whale	0	n/a	51	0
Sperm whale	366	155	3,007	5.2
Kogia spp	3  117	36	980	4.3
Beaked whales	1,271	128	803	16.0
Rough-toothed dolphin	932	268	4,853	5.5
Bottlenose dolphin	1,156	332	165,125	0.2
Clymene dolphin	583	168	4,619	3.6
Atlantic spotted dolphin	345	99	21,506	0.5
Pantropical spotted dolphin	8,022	2,302	67,225	3.4
Spinner dolphin	185	53	5,548	1.0
Striped dolphin	1,667	478	5,634	8.5
Fraser's dolphin	342	98	1,665	5.9
Risso's dolphin	311	92	1,974	4.6
Blackfish 4	2,009	593	6,113	9.7
Short-finned pilot whale	470	139	2,741	5.1
1  Scalar ratios were applied to “Authorized Take” values as described at 86 FR 5322 and 86 FR 5404 (January 19, 2021) to derive scaled take numbers shown here.
2  Best abundance estimate. For most taxa, the best abundance estimate for purposes of comparison with take estimates is considered here to be the model-predicted abundance (Garrison et al., 2023). For Rice's whale, Atlantic spotted dolphin, and Risso's dolphin, the larger SAR abundance estimate is used.
3  Includes 6 takes by Level A harassment and 111 takes by Level B harassment. Scalar ratio is applied to takes by Level B harassment only; small numbers determination made on basis of scaled Level B harassment take plus authorized Level A harassment take.
4  The “blackfish” guild includes melon-headed whales, false killer whales, pygmy killer whales, and killer whales.