2024-16734. Takes of Marine Mammals Incidental to Specified Activities; Taking Marine Mammals Incidental to Site Characterization Surveys Offshore From Massachusetts to New Jersey for Vineyard Northeast, LLC

Table 1—Authorized Number of Takes by Level B Harassment by Species and Stock and Percent of Take by Stock

Species	Scientific name	Stock	Abundance	2023 IHA authorized take	2024 renewal IHA
					Authorized take 1	Max percent population
Blue whale	Balaenoptera musculus	Western North Atlantic	402	1	1	0.25
North Atlantic right whale	Eubalaena glacialis	Western North Atlantic	340	12	12	3.52
Humpback whale	Megaptera novaeangliae	Gulf of Maine	1,396	12	12	0.86
Fin whale	Balaenoptera physalus	Western North Atlantic	6,802	20	20	0.29
Sei whale	Balaenoptera borealis	Nova Scotia	6,292	5	5	0.08
Minke whale	Balaenoptera acutorostrata	Canadian Eastern Coastal	21,968	46	45	0.21
Sperm whale	Physeter macrocephalus	North Atlantic	5,895	2	2	0.03
Long-finned pilot whale 1	Globicephala melas	Western North Atlantic	39,215	17	17	0.04
Killer whale 2  3	Orcinus orca	Western North Atlantic	UNK	4	4	4  5.97
False killer whale 2	Pseudorca crassidens	Western North Atlantic	1,298	5	5	0.39
Atlantic spotted dolphin 3	Stenella frontalis	Western North Atlantic	31,506	29	29	0.09
Atlantic white-sided dolphin	Lagenorhynchus acutus	Western North Atlantic	93,233	129	126	0.14
Bottlenose dolphin	Tursiops truncatus	Western North Atlantic Northern Migratory Coastal	6,639	45	44	0.66
		Western North Atlantic Offshore	64,587	169	165	0.26
Common dolphin	Delphinus delphis	Western North Atlantic	93,100	7,472	7,296	7.84
Risso's dolphin	Grampus griseus	Western North Atlantic	44,067	9	9	0.02
White-beaked dolphin 2  3	Lagenorhynchus albirostris	Western North Atlantic	536,016	30	30	0.006
Harbor porpoise	Phocoena phocoena	Gulf of Maine/Bay of Fundy	85,765	347	339	0.40
Harbor seal 5	Phoca vitulina	Western North Atlantic	61,336	939	917	1.49
Gray seal 5	Halichoerus grypus	Western North Atlantic	6  27,911	418	408	0.09
1  Roberts et al. (2023) only provides density estimates for pilot whales as a guild. Given the project's location, NMFS assumes that all take will be of long-finned pilot whales.
2  Rare (or unlikely to occur) species.
3  Adjusted according to average group size (Kraus et al., 2016; Palka et al., 2017).
4  Based upon minimum population estimate of 67 individual killer whales identified in the Northwestern Atlantic Ocean (Lawson and Stevens, 2014).
5  Roberts et al. (2023) only provides a density estimate for seals as a guild. Vineyard Wind used Protected Species Observer (PSO) data collected during site characterization surveys within the survey area (2019, 2022-2024) to scale density-based exposure estimates for the seal guild for harbor and gray seals.
6  NMFS' stock abundance estimate (and associated PBR value) applies to U.S. population only. Total stock abundance (including animals in Canada) is approximately 451,600.