Creation of a Tursiops gephyreus task team

FRUET, PEDRO; VERMEULEN, ELS; LAPORTA, PAULA; SIMMONDS, MARK; CIPRIANO, FRNK; COSCARELLA, MARIANO ALBERTO; BERNISONE, LEONARDO; DAURA-JORGE, F.; IÑIGUEZ, MIGUEL

Bled

Congreso; 68°B Annual Meeting of the International Whaling Commission; 2020

International Whaling Commission

The coastal populations of bottlenose dolphins in the western South Atlantic (wSA) have recently beenrecognized as a distinct subspecies (Lahille’s bottlenose dolphin - T. t. gephyreus Lahille, 1908) by theSociety for Marine Mammalogy’s Taxonomy Committee. In addition to a restricted distribution within the inshore waters of Southern Brazil, Uruguay andArgentina, T. t. gephyreus has small and fragmented populations, which are exposed to a number ofsignificant threats. he sum of the available abundanceestimates suggests a maximum total population size of 600 individuals. With an estimated 60% ofmature individuals, the total number of mature individuals in the species can be estimated at 360, wellbelow the threshold to be listed as Vulnerable under criterion D1 (IUCN 2019). Therefore, thesubspecies was classified as “vulnerable” by a recent IUCN Red List assessment (Vermeulen et al.2019a). hence, the creation of a "Tursiops gephyreus task teem is a need in the IWC.