2024-21612. 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 ¹

Species	Authorized take	Abundance 2	Percent abundance
Rice's whale	0	51	n/a
Sperm whale	38	3,007	1.3
Kogia spp	3  15	980	1.5
Beaked whales	15	803	1.9
Rough-toothed dolphin	103	4,853	2.1
Bottlenose dolphin	154	165,125	0.1
Clymene dolphin	190	4,619	4.1
Atlantic spotted dolphin	248	21,506	1.2
Pantropical spotted dolphin	751	67,225	1.1
Spinner dolphin	4  0	5,548	n/a
Striped dolphin	112	5,634	2.0
Fraser's dolphin	5  65	1,665	3.9
Risso's dolphin	28	1,974	1.4
Blackfish 6	296	6,113	4.8
Short-finned pilot whale	153	2,741	5.6
1  Scalar ratios were not applied in this case due to brief survey duration.
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 estimated SAR abundance estimate is used.
3  Includes 1 take by Level A harassment and 14 takes by Level B harassment. Small numbers determination made on basis of scaled Level B harassment take plus authorized Level A harassment take.
4  Modeled take of 1 rounded down to 0.
5  Modeled take of 41 increased to account for potential encounter with a group of average size (Maze-Foley and Mullin, 2006).
6  The “blackfish” guild includes melon-headed whales, false killer whales, pygmy killer whales, and killer whales.