10,000 to >1,000,000 individuals

Comments: Total population is estimated at less than 51,000: about 14,000 in the Northern Hemisphere (mainly in the North Pacific), 37,000 or less in the Southern Hemisphere; a survey of Antarctic waters in the summer of 1989 found only 1500 in an area where perhaps 10,000 were expected (Matthews and Moseley 1990). North Atlantic population numbers a few thousand. See IUCN (1991) for further information on population sizes.