Harbour porpoise (Pacific Ocean population) COSEWIC assessment and status report: chapter 17
Distribution
Harbour porpoises are coastally distributed throughout the temperate and subarctic waters of the northern hemisphere, with several records in Canadian Arctic waters (Bree et al. 1977; Gaskin 1992). On the Pacific coast of Canada, harbour porpoise are found throughout coastal waters (Cowan and Guiguet 1965; Pike and MacAskie 1969; Baird and Guenther 1995), excluding some deep-water fjords and inlets (Figure 2). Harbour porpoises are present year-round along the coast, and there is no evidence of migrations (Baird and Guenther 1995), although limited effort has been expended to study this species in areas other than the southern Strait of Georgia and Juan de Fuca Strait.
Figure 2. Distribution of sighting, stranding and incidental mortality records of harbour porpoises in British Columbia. Stranding and incidental mortality records were collected through the Stranded Whale and Dolphin Program of British Columbia; sighting records were compiled by the Marine ammal Research Group, Victoria, British Columbia. (see references cited in the text). Recording effort is extremely heterogeneous, thus the distribution of records does not necessarily indicate true relative abundance. Map courtesy of Ellen Hines, University of Victoria.
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