The North Pacific Right Whale Eubalaena japonica*)
- the World's Most Endangered Whale -
Science & Conservation

The North Pacific Right Whale - What is it?

    Right whales (Eubalaena spp.) are very large baleen whales .The North Pacific right whale can reach a length of 60 feet, about 15 feet longer than fully-grown gray or humpback whales. Right whales are much more "robust" than either gray or humpback whales; the latter look positively svelte in comparison. Taxonomically, the right whale "family", Balaenidae, consists of the right whales (Eubalaena spp.), the bowhead whale of the high Arctic (Balaena mysticetus), and the poorly known pygmy right whale of the Southern Hemisphere (). The right whales are more distantly related to the other, more familiar baleen whales such as blue, humpback, and gray whales.

     Right whales (and bowhead whales) differ most noticably from other baleen whales in the manner of their feeding. Blue and humpback whales have pleated, elastic throats and gulp food consisting of large krill or fish in the manner of enormous underwater pelicans, their throats expanding enormously as they lunge through a school of fish or krill. In contrast, right whales lack elastic throats, and instead have enormous, very tall mouths. Right whale feed by swimming with their mouths open skimming tiny zooplankton continuously. Right whales feed exclusively on copepods (Calanus spp.), the smallest food consumed by any of the whales; a food item so small the baleen of other whales probably cannot strain it out. Other baleen whales feed on larger krill and small fish.

Right whales resemble bowhead whales, so much so that whalers, and even scientists, prior to the late 19th century thought they were were the same species. Bowhead whales occur only in the Northern Hemisphere, and have a distribution that tends to be considerable more polar than the right whales. Bowheads tend to be found very close to, or in the pack ice. In contrast, right whales have a distrubution that is considerable more temperate, and can be found wintering in areas as temperate as northern Florida, southern Australia, and even Brazil.

     Right whales can be distinguished visually from bowhead whales without much difficulty by modern oberservers. Most noticable on right whales are patches of roughened skin (epidermis) on the rostrum and above the eyes called callosities that are usually covered by white-colored cyamids known as "whale lice". These give the whale the appearance of having large white patches on its head. These patches are permanent enough to have been used to individually identify right whales in numerous studies Bowhead lack callosities, are larger, and often have a large white patch on the lower part of their jaw. To distinguish the two species, the right whale has often been referred to as the "black right whale".

     The black right whales in the North Atlantic, Southern Oceans, and the North Pacific all look very similar, and until the last few years, scientists considered all these Eubalaena right whales to be the same species - E. glacialis. References to North Pacific right whales prior to 2000 would generally refer to these animals as E. glacialis. However, recent genetic studies have caused scientists to conclude that the populations of right whales living in the North Atlantic, Southern Hemisphere and North Pacific are three distinct species. The North Atlantic whales are referred to as Eubalaena glacialis; the Southern Hemisphere right whales have been named E. australis; and the North Pacific right whales named E. japonica.

    Many people know of right whales as a consequence of Roger Payne's National Geographic Society TV specials on the whales of Peninsula Valdez, Argentina. Right whales have also recently gotten attention from whale-watchers off Cape Cod and other areas in the northeast and eastern Canada. Right whales are even becoming the object of significant whale watching industries (and nice WWW sites!) along the coasts of Australia (Whales on the Net and (South Australia Whale Centre), South Africa, and New Brunswick, Canada. However, right whales also occur in the North Pacific. In fact, they were the basis for a major whaling industry in the North Pacific, particularly between 1840-48. They still occur in the North Pacific, yet they are the forgotten whale species. Here is some information about them.

The World's Most Endangered Whale Species: The North Pacific Right Whale

     Among the large whales, right whales have shown the least signs of recovery after their decimation by whalers. The population in the eastern North Atlantic that supported a major fishery appears to be zero. The population in the western North Atlantic is less than 400 animals. In the North Pacific, the species is so exceedingly rare that almost every sighting of a single animal is a publishable event. There may only be a few hundred animals or less in the entire North Pacific with most of these animals occurring in the western North Atlantic and the Sea of Okhotsk.

     In the U.S., conservation of all whales is the responsibility of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) in the Department of Commerce. Their WWW site has information about Northern Right Whales generally. Pursuant to its responsibilities under the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act, in 1990 NMFS prepared a Recovery Plan for the the Northern Right Whale which it is now updating. Because the western North Atlantic population is much better known than the No Pacific population, the former has been the focus of the conservation efforts of NMFS and other groups such as the New England Aquarium and the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, MA. The No. Pacific right whale population remains elusively difficult to study, let alone protect. The International Whaling Commission convened a Special Meeting of the Scientific Committee to Review the Status of Right Whales in March 1998 in South Africa.

Sightings or Recordings of Right Whales in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska 1996-2005

• 2005 - 1 right whale seen in near Kodiak Island, Gulf of Alaska (Paul Wade, pers communication)
• 2004 - approximately 23 right whales were seen in the SE Bering Sea, 17 of which were photographed. Biopsy samples of 17 whales confirmed 10 males and 7 females. The 7 females was very exciting news as previously only 1 of the 10 genetically sampled whales had been a female. Observers also reported 3 possible cow/calf pairs. Only one cow/calf pair had been seen in all previous surveys. (Biological Letters _______ (2006). 1 right whale seen in near Kodiak Island, Gulf of Alaska (Paul Wade, pers communication).
• 2002 - 6 right whales identified from genetic studies
• June/July 2000 3 right whales seen in SE Bering Sea, one of which may be same as seen in previous years (J. Caretta, SWFC, pers. communication) An additional 3 right whales were photographed.
• Summer 1999 - ?# of right whales seen in the SE Bering Sea in a NMFS/NMML aerial and shipboard survey (Marine Mammal Society Newsletter, Sept. 1999)
• summer 1998 - 5 sightings of right whales in the SE Bering Sea during NMFS/NMML aerial and ship survey. (Marine Mammal Society Newsletter, Sept. 1999)
• 7/21/97 - right whales seen in SE Bering Sea during NMFS ship survey "in the middle shelf domain, south of the Inner Front in water approx. 55m in depth. Biopsy samples taken. (Marine Mammal Society Newsletter, Sept. 1999)
• 7/30/96 4 right whales seen in Bering Sea

New scientific review of all 20th century right whale records in No. Pacific

     Robert Brownell and Phil Clapham's paper on the "Conservation status of North Pacific right whales". This is the most complete record of all sightings and killings of right whales in the North Pacific in this century. One of there conclusions is that there probably was a large illegal take of right whales in the North Pacific by Soviet whalers in the late 1950s or early 1960s. Illegal Soviet catches of right whales in the Southern Hemisphere have recently been confirmed by Russian scientists.

Sightings since 1955 along the Coasts of California, Baja, Oregon and Washington

There have been only 13 records of right whales off California (including two sightings off Baja) this century, all but one since 1955. Most of the sightings have been of single animals and most occurred in late winter or spring (March-May) very close to shore, several by observers on shore.

• 16 September 1998 - 1 right whale in Monterey Seen by Debbie Shearwater, owner of Shearwater Journeys, a small whale.No photos taken
• 27 February 1998  near Cape San Martin, California. .A single right whale was spotted off the Big Sur Coast, fleeing a pair of apparently aggressive gray whales in an unusual interaction observed by Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary officials. Monterey Bay Sanctuary Superintendent Bill Douros and NOAA Corps. pilot Lt. Commander Matt Pickett, were aboard the Sanctuary airplane along the Big Sur Coast near Cape San Martin, when large splashes appeared in the ocean below them, near a pod of gray whales. "We looked down and saw a large black whale being chased by several gray whales," Douros said. Pickett, who has flown right whale census projects off the East Coast, confirmed the sighting. "There were probably 12 gray whales in an area about a quarter square mile near the right whale, although only two were obviously interacting with the right whale. We saw one group of six gray whales swimming together, northbound, several hundred yards south of the right whale," Douros added. For about 15 minutes Douros and Pickett circled the whales, watching the right whale veer back and forth, splash and dive repeatedly as it tried to elude the pursuing gray whales. Eventually the right whale submerged for an extended period and Douros and Pickett continued their flight. While the right whale was swimming northbound, eluding the gray whales, neither Douros or Pickett were confident that they could predict the whale's overall direction of travel. "It's an extraordinary, unprecedented sighting," said Alan Baldridge, a cetacean expert recently retired from Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Laboratory, "We've never heard of aggressive behavior between baleen whales. We see aggressive interactions between baleen and toothed whales - such as orcas. But nothing like this."
• 2 April 1996 1 right whale, estimated to be 13m in length of undetermined sex, was sighted in the company of 3 humpback whales off the western coast of Maui, Hawaii (20°56' N, 156° 46' W). The right whale appeared to initiate social interactions with the humpbacks. This is the first sighting of right whales near Hawaii since 1979. Salden, D.R. and Mickelsen, J. 1999. Rare sighting of a North Pacific right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) in Hawai'i. Pacific Science 53(4):341-345.
• 19 February 1996 15 km off Cabo San Lucas, Mexico (23° 02' N, 109° 30' W). A single right whale was seen by D. Gendron on 19 February 1996. This is only the third confirmed sighting of a right whale off Baja, although Scammon suggested they may have been common there. Gendron, D. Lanham, S., and Carwardine, M. 1999. North Pacific right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) sighting South of Baja California. Aquatic Mammals 25(1):31-34.
• 3 May 1995 off Piedras Blancas, CA (Rowlett et al in prep, I believe).
• 24 May 1992 off Cape Elizabeth, Washington (Rowlett et al. 1994, Northwest Naturalist 75: 102-104).
• 24 March 1992 70km SW of the SE tip of San Clemente Island, CA (Caretta et al. 1994. Marine Mammal Sci. 10(1):101-105.
• 9 May 1990 one animal 17m, 8 miles N of Santa Catalina Island,CA (Scarff, 1991).
• 5 February 1988. one animal. La Jolla, CA (W. Perrin, pers. comm)
• 20 March 1982. one adult 1.5 km off Pillar Point (Half Moon Bay), CA (Scarff, J. 1986b.)
• 17 April 1981 one 14m animal near Santa Barbara, CA (Woodhouse & Strickley, 1982).
• 13 September 1974. 60 km W of Fort Bragg, CA (NMFS POP)
• 11 March 1965. one 15m animal 12km SW Punta Abreojos, Baja (Rice & Fiscus 1968)
• 10 May 1963. 44 km SSW Farallon Island (Rice & Fiscus 1968)
• 11 April 1963. one <9m animal 61 mile SW Pigeon Point, CA (Rice & Fiscus 1968)
• 13 May 1959. one 13m animal 16 miles SW Pt Montara, CA (Rice & Fiscus, 1968)
• 31 March 1955. one 13m animal off La Jolla, CA (Gilmore 1956)

My studies of Maury's whaling records from the 1840s revealed very dense populations of right whales both in the Gulf of Alaska, and more particularly along the coast of Kamchatka (RWs seen on 90+% of search days) and along the Kurile Islands. Review of the historic whaling records shows an extraordinary abundance of right whales in the North Pacific in the 1840s. Right whales appear to have been more abundant than gray whales in the North Pacific. I hope that the No Pac. right whale is not forgotten in all the justified concern for RWs in other oceans.

All indications are that the E North Pacific population is exceedingly small and may be on its way out. Given the level of whalewatching/fishing/pelagic birding effort along the California coast, particularly during the January-March period, the low level of sightings appears to mirror a very small, perhaps intermittent population here.

Recommended Popular Books & Articles about Right Whales:

• Right Whales by Phil Clapham (Voyageur Press) 2004. An excellent book on the biology and conservation status of right whales. Most of the conservation emphasis is on the western North Atlantic population, but is relevant to No. Pacific right whales as well. Well-written, it is an easy read for anyone interested in this species and scientifically very accurate and current.
• Going Dow? by Joseph Roman in Wildlife Conservation magazine, June 2000 pp.36-35. A good survey of the problems facing the northern right whale with a focus on the western North Atlantic population.
• The Search for the Right Whale by Scott Kraus & Kenneth Mallory, (Crown Publishers/New England Aquarium, 1993). Although this book looks like it is aimed towards a younger audience, it is an excellent introduction to right whales with great photos.
• Seasons of the Whale by Erich Hoyt (Chelsea Green Publishing Co, 1990). This book tells the story of a couple of dozen real whales and dolphins during their annual migrations along the east coast of North America, including the story of 5 right whales.
• With the Whales by Flip Nicklin and James Darling (NorthWood Press, 1990). An extraordinary collection of spectacular photographs of whales, including many shots of right whales.
• Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises by the National Geographic Society (1995). One of the best books the NGS has ever done with more of Flip Nicklin's spectacular photos.
• Among Whales by Roger Payne in Natural History (January 1994) pp. 40-47. (about Argentina)

 Please send any comments or corrections to: Jim Scarff with "right whale" in subject line.