IUCN Red List Assessment
Red List Category
LC
Least Concern
Red List Criteria
Version
3.1
Year Assessed
2008
Assessor/s
Hammond, P.S., Bearzi, G., Bjørge, A., Forney, K., Karczmarski, L., Kasuya, T., Perrin, W.F., Scott, M.D., Wang, J.Y., Wells, R.S. & Wilson, B.
Reviewer/s
Rojas-Bracho, L. & Smith, B.D. (Cetacean Red List Authority)
Justification
The species is widespread and abundant, with current range-wide population estimates of more than one million animals. The species was killed in high-seas driftnet fisheries operations during the 1970s and 1980s, but these fisheries have now been banned, and by-catch levels were not considered sufficiently high to cause population declines. While incidental and directed takes in Japanese coastal waters as well as incidental takes in Russian waters are ongoing (with combined removals on the order of 20,000 annually), neither threat is likely to have caused a range-wide decline sufficient to warrant listing in a category of threat.
History
- 1996Lower Risk/conservation dependent
- 1994Insufficiently Known(Groombridge 1994)
