P
ursued by humans for more thaneight centuries, the NorthAtlantic right whale is one of themost endangered marine mammalsin U.S. waters. Early whalers desig-nated the North Atlantic right whaleas the “right” whale to huntbecause it frequented coastalwaters, swam slowly, floated whendead, and yielded large amounts ofoil and baleen (an elastic, hornysubstance used in corsets, buggy whips, etc.).Commercial organizations considered right whales tobe economically extinct by the early 1900s, butwhalers in search of other species still opportunisti-cally killed right whales. Although protection for rightwhales began in the 1930s, the population has notrecovered well. Researchers estimate that between300 and 350 North Atlantic right whales exist today.The continental shelf waters from Savannah,Georgia, to Port Canaveral, Florida, are the onlyknown calving area of this benign behemoth;therefore, the state of Florida plays a major role in thestudy and protection of right whales and their calvingarea. Today, North Atlantic right whales arethreatened by human-related events such as shipcollisions and fishing-gear entan-glements. Officials and scientistsare developing methods to protectright whales, especially in thecalving area. Protection measuresinclude (1) aerial surveys forlocating right whales to preventship strikes, (2) a pager systemwhereby aerial observers notifymariners of right whale locations tomitigate potential ship strikes, and(3) disentanglement operations in which biologiststry to remove fishing gear from seriously entangledwhales. Locational data from aerial surveys are alsoused to relate whale distribution and abundance toenvironmental variables, such as temperature anddepth, in their habitat. Understanding right whale useof habitat helps managers to decide when and whereto implement protection measures to prevent extinc-tion of the species.
Description
The right whale is one of four species of large whalesthat lack a dorsal fin; the other three species are thebowhead, the gray, and the sperm whale. Another
Scientific name
Eubalaena glacialis
Size
To 55 feet, up to 70 tons
Life expectancy
More than 70 years
Range
Eastern coast of North America
Habitat
Coastal waters
Status
Federally listed as an endangered species
Estimated population
Between 300 and 350
RIGHTWHALES
Giants in Jeopardy
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation CommissionFish and Wildlife Research Institute
Whale art after Howard Hall photo; used with permission.
characteristic that helps to identify right whales inthe water is their
V
-shaped blow, reminiscent of ageyser that can shoot as high as 16 feet in the air.When they surface, right whales inhale and exhalethrough two widely separated blow holes, producingtheir distinctive blow. Other identifying characteris-tics of right whales include broad, short flippers onthe chest and a pair of long tail fins, called flukes, thatare usually raised high into the air as they begin adeep dive.Right whales are baleen whales. In contrast totoothed whales such as dolphins and killer whales,baleen whales have finely fringed plates along theirjaws that are used like sieves to trap prey. Typically,each plate is 8–9 feet tall. Baleen whales eat bytaking a large mouthful of water containing tinyanimals such as copepods, a type of zooplanktonthat is about the size of a grain of rice. The water isthen strained out through the baleen, which traps thecopepods.A right whale has black or dark gray skin withdistinctive callous growths, called “callosities,” on itshead. White cyamids, also known as whale lice, oftencover these growths. The largest of these callosities,on the whale’s snout, is called the bonnet. Thesegrowths help scientists identify individual rightwhales.From tail to head, the length of a right whale canbe equal to the height of a five-story building, and itcan weigh as much as a fully loaded militarytransport plane. Their rotund shape has earned themthe moniker “tugboat of whales.” Although they areslow swimmers, they are remarkably acrobatic,gracefully performing underwater turns andpirouettes, and executing near-vertical dives afterthey breach the water’s surface. They also wave theirflippers and slap the surface with them.Their massive size likely contributes to thespecies’ slow reproductive rate. A female right whalecan begin giving birth at 8 to 12 years of age, but shecan reproduce only once every three to five years. Acalf usually remains with its mother until it is about
2
Right whale calves weigh one ton—2,000 pounds—at birth, and they grow more than a half inch every day for the first ten months of their lives.
3
one year old and 28 feet long. Scientists haveestimated an average of approximately 12–13 birthsper year, about 1/3 of the births necessary to sustainthe species. Although they noted a record high of 31births in 2001, only one calf was born in the previousyear. Calf mortalities, from ship strikes and fishinggear, reduce the overall reproduction, further con-tributing to problems of recovery in the right whale.
Range and Distribution
In the mid 1970s, researchers identified Florida andGeorgia coastal waters as a calving area for the rightwhale. Pregnant females, along with some juvenilesand adult males, leave their northeastern feedinggrounds sometime in October/November and come tothe southeastern calving area to have their young.Scientists and members of public sighting networksobserve them in the calving area from approximatelyDecember through March. Calves travel with theirmothers on the return trip to northeastern feedingand nursery areas in late winter and early spring.Late spring through fall, right whales feed inwaters off New England and Canada. The summerfeeding place for males and females without calves isan Atlantic Ocean area called Roseway Basin, southof Nova Scotia. The summer feeding and nursinggrounds for many mothers with first-year calves isthe Bay of Fundy, just north of the U.S.-Canadaborder between Maine and Nova Scotia. Thesewaters have large, dense patches of zooplankton thatare required by right whales in order to sustain them-selves on such tiny prey items. Right whales leave thenortheastern feeding grounds by the end of fall.Scientists do not know where many of the males andnon-pregnant females go during the winter months,when pregant females and some others migrate to thecalving grounds off the southeastern U.S.North Atlantic right whales are closely related tothe southern right whales of the coastal waters offSouth America, Africa, and Australia. However, theyare separate species. Unlike the North Atlantic rightwhale, southern right whale populations haveincreased in numbers since whaling was banned. Infact, the southern right whale has recovered from anestimated population of a few hundred individuals inthe 1970s to 3,000–5,000 individuals presently.
Behavior and Threats
Herman Melville, author of
Moby Dick
, warned asearly as 1851 that hunting right whales could causethe species to “vanish from the face of the earth.”Right whales were among the first baleen whales toreceive international protection. The commercialharvest of right whales was banned internationally,first by the League of Nations in 1935, and then bythe International Whaling Commission, which wasestablished in 1946. Even with this internationalprotection, North Atlantic right whale populationshave not recovered to safe population levels, andexperts consider this species of large whale as one ofthe most susceptible to extinction.Right whales have only one natural predator:killer whales. However, only 3% of right whales havescars caused by killer whale attacks. This means thathumans, principally through shipping, bothcommercial and military, and fishing gear, pose thebiggest threat to right whale survival. Although shipsare no longer armed with harpoons, they may still bedeadly. Some ships, such as tankers and freighters,may be as long as a football field and have propellersthat are 15 to 30 feet in diameter. Getting hit by aship this large can shatter ribs or jawbones, and thehuge propeller blades can shatter right whales’spines or slice their tails. Right whales may also
From 1980 to 1992, only 51 females wereknown to be reproductively active out of theestimated population of around 300.From 1999 to 2003, total human-caused mortality and serious injury to right whales,resulting from fishery-related entanglements and ship strikes, was estimated at 2.6 per year. Eventhis small number is significant in a populationas small as that of right whales and contributesto the potential for extinction of the species.
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Sea Stats - Right Whales
Pursued by humans for more than eight centuries, the North Atlantic right whale is one of the most endangered marine mammals in U.S. waters.
This brochure discusses the North Atlantic right whale, an annual visitor to… (More)
This brochure discusses the North Atlantic right whale, an annual visitor to… (More)
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