INTRODUCTION 



Most information published to date on the marine bird and mammal faunas 

 inhabiting outer Continental Shelf waters off the eastern seaboard states is 

 based on scattered observations and dead or stranded animals washed ashore. 

 Few observations of pelagic birds occurring off the east coast have been 

 reported. Wynne-Edwards (1935) and Murphy (1967) summarized pelagic bird 

 distributions in the North Atlantic. Moore (1951) described the seasonal 

 distribution of birds in the western Atlantic based on observations accumu- 

 lated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). Butcher et al. 

 (1968) charted most of the North Atlantic seabird records on file at WHOI. 

 More recently. Brown et al. (1976) quantitatively summarized seabird distri- 

 bution in the northwest Atlantic, and Rowlett (1973b) presented accounts of 

 seabirds wintering off Maryland. 



Most records of marine mammals from this area have been summarized by 

 Handley and Patton (1947), Ulmer (1961), Paradise (1969), Reeves (1976), 

 Leatherwood et al. (1976), and Reeves and Ulmer (1976). Since the early 

 1970's, the Smithsonian Institution's marine mammal salvage program has added 

 a wealth of information pertaining to the status of species along the coast 

 from New Jersey to South Carolina. Rowlett (1974b) reported observations of 

 cetaceans at sea off Ocean City, Maryland. Personnel on research vessels of 

 the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the National Oceanic and Atmos- 

 pheric Administration (NOAA), the WHOI, the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Navy, 

 and several educational institutions have recorded marine mammal observations. 

 These latter records usually were gathered incidentally to the primary mis- 

 sions of these organizations. 



Here I have summarized my observations on the spatial and temporal dis- 

 tributions of marine birds and mammals observed in Atlantic Ocean waters over 

 the Continental Shelf between latitudes 37°N and 39°N. These records were 

 gathered from 1971 - 1977 off the coasts of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia 

 (Delmarva Peninsula). 



