North Pacific right whale
| North Pacific right whale | |
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| Size compared to an average human | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Artiodactyla |
| Infraorder: | Cetacea |
| Family: | Balaenidae |
| Genus: | Eubalaena |
| Species: | E. japonica |
| Binomial name | |
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Eubalaena japonica (Lacépède, 1818) |
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| Range map | |
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The North Pacific right whale (Eubalaena japonica) is a very large, robust baleen whale species that is now extremely rare and endangered. The Northeast Pacific subpopulation, which summers in the southeastern Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska, may have no more than 40 animals. A western subpopulation that summers in the Sea of Okhotsk between the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin Island appears to number in the low hundreds of animals. Prior to commercial whaling in the North Pacific (i.e. pre-1835) the populations in the North Pacific probably were over 20,000 animals. The taking of right whales in commercial whaling has been prohibited by one or more international treaties since 1935. Between 1962 and 1968, illegal Soviet whaling killed at least 529 right whales in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska as well as at least 132 right whales in the Sea Okhotsk. plus an additional 104 North Pacific right whales from unspecified areas.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature categorizes the species as "Endangered". It categorizes the Northeast Pacific subpopulation as "Critically Endangered". According to the Center for Biological Diversity, the North Pacific right whale is the most endangered whale on Earth.
Since 2000, scientists have considered the right whales in the North Pacific and nearby seas to be a separate species, Eubalaena japonica, the North Pacific Right Whale. Genetic differences between E. japonica and E. australis are much smaller than other baleen whales represent among different ocean basins.
Prior to 2000, right whales in the North Pacific were considered conspecific with right whales in the North Atlantic and Southern Hemisphere and all described as Eubalaena glacialis in the scientific literature. All these animals resemble each other in outward appearance very closely. The differences that separate them into separate species are genetic and discussed in the article on Balaenidae. The recognition of the different populations of Eubalaena whales as distinct species is supported by the Society for Marine Mammalogy, the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service, and the International Whaling Commission.
The North Pacific, North Atlantic and Southern right whales are all members of the family Balaenidae. The bowhead whale found in the Arctic is also a balaenid whale, but sufficiently different to warrant its own genus Balaena.
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Wikipedia