2024-28455. 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	543	230	3,007	7.6
Kogia spp.	3  172	52	980	6.2
Beaked whales	1,882	190	803	23.7
Rough-toothed dolphin	1,399	401	4,853	8.3
Bottlenose dolphin	1,684	483	165,125	0.3
Clymene dolphin	869	168	4,619	3.6
Atlantic spotted dolphin	496	142	21,506	0.7
Pantropical spotted dolphin	11,845	3,400	67,225	5.1
Spinner dolphin	258	74	5,548	1.3
Striped dolphin	2,441	701	5,634	12.4
Fraser's dolphin	512	98	1,665	5.9
Risso's dolphin	421	124	1,974	6.3
Blackfish 4	3,012	888	6,113	14.5
Short-finned pilot whale	698	206	2,741	7.5
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 9 takes by Level A harassment and 163 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.