145 



Florida in 1935, but the main 20th Century U.S. whaling was from Long Island, 

 where only ten were killed or struck and lost between 1900 and 1924 

 (Reeves and Mitchell, 1986). 



P 3-7/1 3/L 11: The estimate of 100 animals in 1935 is unsupported by citation of 

 source, and likely pure conjecture. There are no reliable estimates of western 

 North Atlantic stock abundance prior to CETAP. I have back-calculated possi- 

 ble 1935 abundance based on current estimates and a range of annual rates 

 of increase (Kenney, 1991, 1992; Kenney, Winn, and Macaulay, in prep.). It 

 is possible that far fewer than 100 animals survived at the population's low 

 point, in 1935 or earlier. This is supported by extremely low genetic variabili- 

 ty in the population (Brown, 1991; Schaeff et ai, 1991, 1992). 



P 3-7/1 4/L 7-8: The "missing" right whales in the winter include far more than 

 juvenile and adult males. In fact, some juveniles have been showing up in the 

 calving grounds, particularly in the last few years. The missing whales in- 

 clude most juveniles of both sexes, all adult males, and all non-reproductive 

 adult females (those just finishing lactation or resting years, plus any which 

 may simply not breed at all). 



P 3-8/1 1 /L 1-2: The numbers and other data presented in Kraus et al. (1992) 

 were preliminary, and many have been changed during revisions. This was a 

 draft contract report to MMS, and probably should not have been made avail- 

 able outside of MMS until after revisions were completed. This should be 

 kept in mind for any citations from the report contained in the Assessment. 



P 3-8/1 1: Dave Gaskin's information on the status of the photoidentification work 

 is not entirely current. Knowlton et al. (in prep.) have attempted to address 

 this issue by presuming that any whale which has not been resighted for five 

 years or more has died. The population size by this method is somewhere 

 between 290 and 295 (changes slightly with newly matched photos), but 

 does not account for some unknown number of animals which have never 

 been photographically identified. 



P 3-8/1 2/L 4-5: The source used for the existence of other high-use habitats is 

 not stated, and this belief is based on sparse original information. There are 

 only three good possibilities for areas with large numbers of right whales 

 between current high-use habitats off New England and Florida. Two of these 

 were areas of shore-based right whaling — Long Island (Reeves and Mitchell, 

 1986) and the North Carolina Outer Banks (Reeves and Mitchell, 1988). In 

 both of these, the animals taken were very likely migrants moving northward 

 along the coast in the late winter and early spring. Such migrants are still 

 sighted, thoughmuch less frequently than during the periods when those 



