ICES Study Group on Seals and Small Cetaceans in Northern European Seas

The Study Group held its second meeting from 2-5 March, 1992 in the Cromarty Centre, Cromarty, Scotland. A list of participants is given in Appendix 1 and the agreed agenda is shown in Appendix 2. The Study Group had been given new terms of reference at the 1991 Statutory Meeting of ICES. These were:

(a) assess the trends in, and current status of, seal and coastal dolphin populations (particularly those of Phocoena phocoena and Tursiops tnmcatus) in the North Sea, Baltic Sea, Bay of Biscay and other European seas, and provide quantitative data, including confidence limits, whenever possible;

(b) advise on appropriate methods for selecting, collecting and archiving 1) data from surveys, sightings and strandings and 2) samples from strandings of those species, including the role of ICES as a central repository for such data;

(c) evaluate available infonnation on the by-catch of those species - extent as well as type of fisheries involved - and advise on procedures and techniques both to assess by catch and centralize registration of data from national reporting schemes;

(d) collate information on possible techniques to prevent by-catchesof marine mammals;

(e) advise on the types of management aetions which may be necessary to ensure the continued health of populations whose status is satisfactory and improve the status of those which are considered to be vulnerable;

(f) develop preliminary plans for an ICES workshop on distribution and sources of pathogens in marine mammals with the involvement of ecologists, virologists, immunologists and epidemiologists studying diseases of man and domestic animals;

(g) review the functioning of this Study Group with regard to the continued requests to ICES for information on population developments of, and anthropogenic influences on, marine mammals in the context of other ICES Study/Working Groups;

(h) report its findings to the Marine Mammals Committee, ACMP, ACFM and the Multispecies Assessment Working Group.