North Pacific right whale

The North Pacific right whale (Eubalaena japonica) is a very large, thickset baleen whale species that is extremely rare and endangered. The Northeast Pacific population, which summers in the southeastern Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska, may have no more than 40 animals. A western population that summers near the Commander Islands, along the Kamchatka coast, along the Kuril Islands, and in the Sea of Okhotsk is thought to number in the low hundreds. Before commercial whaling in the North Pacific (i.e., pre-1835), there were probably over 20,000 right whales in the region. The taking of right whales in commercial whaling has been prohibited by one or more international treaties since 1935. N...

Right whales' habitat preferences vary depending on the time of year. In spring, summer, and fall, the right whales are seeking concentrations of food. In winter, in the North Atlantic and Southern Hemisphere, pregnant females and their calves generally seek out shallow, protected bays in which to give birth and raise their calves. In the North Pacific, the pattern of right whales seeking out areas of high food is the same, but female right whales and calves in the North Pacific do not show the clear pattern of concentrating in nearshore aggregations. The distribution of North Pacific right whales in winter remains a major mystery. Since there are so few right whales to observe in the North Pacific and they generally feed far from shore, alternative analyses of habitat preferences are required. Gregr used maps of historic whaling catches and added oceanographic data from other sources to identify preferred habitats. His analysis suggests that on the scale of ocean basins, North Pacific right whales seek out regions of cold water with low inter-annual variability and high within-season variability (i.e., areas where high frontal activity occurred predictably from year to year). However, on a more localized regional scale, these correlations weakened. In winter, North Pacific right whales can occur from the Bering Sea as far south as the Bonin Islands. It is the whales that go south that are frequently seen close to shore. Right whales have historically been found closer to shore in very shallow waters than other large baleen whales, but they are by no means limited to near-shore habitats. There is a record of a female North Atlantic right whale giving birth 63 km off the shores of Jacksonville, Florida. Many of the very near-shore sightings of North Pacific right whales have occurred in Russia, Japan, and South Korea. They have been seen to enter into ports, staying just next to piers or wharfs, and there have been regular records of whales being entangled in set nets along Japanese and South Korean coasts in recent years. There has been a record of rather aggressive interspecies interactions between a right whale and a pod of grey whales off California, making it the only record of possible interspecies aggression among baleen whales, but there have been an observation of social behaviors between the two species on Sakhalin. Furthermore, there is no decent population of grey whales existing outside of North Pacific as of 2014, therefore extents of interspecies competitions, if they've ever happened, or peaceful habitat sharing between these coastal species, before whaling, are unknown. A theory of humpback whales to invade and become a dominant species over Hawaiian islands, former wintering ground for right whales, in the past few centuries, corresponding with the timing of right whale hunts across the Pacific Ocean, had been claimed as well. Summering congregations were known to occur in various areas, as indicated by whaling records. The following locations had larger numbers of catch records: Korf in Olyutorsky, and Kambalny Bay. Of these, at least Kambalny Bay still hosts several whales at times; 5 whales were observed from the shore in December, 2012.

United States

Like right whales in other oceans, North Pacific right whales feed primarily on copepods, mainly the species Calanus marshallae. They also have been reported off Japan and in the Gulf of Alaska, feeding on copepods of the genus Neocalanus with a small quantity of euphausiid larvae, Euphausia pacifica. Like other right whale species, the North Pacific right whale feeds by skimming water continuously while swimming; this is in contrast to balaenopterid whales, such as the blue and humpback whales, which engulf prey in rapid lunges, surging upward rapidly from the depths. Right whales do not have pleated throats. Instead, they have very large heads and mouths that allow them to swim with their mouths open (similar to the basking and whale sharks); the water with the copepods flows in, then flows sideways through the right whale's very long, very fine baleen trapping the copepods, and then out over their large lower lips. The mouth is then closed tightly to expel excess water, effectively trapping the prey behind the baleen. It takes millions of tiny copepods to provide the energy a right whale needs. Thus, right whales must find copepods at very high concentrations, greater than 3,000 per cubic meter, to feed efficiently. National Marine Fisheries Service researchers mapped the southeast Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska for areas with sufficient productivity to support such concentrations. They analyzed the roles of bathymetry and various gyres in concentrating copepods to such densities.

There have been very few, short visual observations of right whale behavior in the North Pacific. The mid-19th-century whaling onslaught occurred before there was much scientific interest in whale behavior and included no scientific observation. By the time scientific interest in this species developed, very few whales remained, and nowhere in the eastern North Pacific or Bering Sea could observers reliably find them. Based on limited observations in the 19th century, it was noted that the more extensively whaling was conducted, the more aggressive whales became and the harder they were to approach. These traits correspond to observations made in 2014 documenting that these whales seem to be sensitive to the presence of surface vessels, swimming away or submerging for longer periods of time, enough for onlookers and observers to lose sight of them. Pre-World War I whaling logs from Japan also describe right whales as being among the most sensitive of targeted baleen or toothed species to the impacts of whaling, as they immediately fled from locations where whaling took place, possibly abandoning their habitat for good. As of 2006, scientists had minimal success with satellite tagging North Pacific right whales. Observations total probably less than 50 hours over the last 50 years. What little is known about North Pacific right whale behavior suggests that it is similar to the behavior of right whales in other oceans, except in its choice of wintering grounds. The individual observed during a whale-watching tour off the Kii Peninsula, Japan, breached six times in a row in 2006. The same whale watching operator had two sightings in 2006 and again had a very close encounter with a right whale in 2011. This animal was very curious and active; it swam around the vessel for more than 2 hours, breaching, spyhopping, tail-slapping, and pec-slapping close to the boat. The ship had to cruise away from the whale because it kept following them. Another curious and playful individual was encountered during a whale-watching trip off Bonin Islands in March 2014. Like the other Eubalaena species, North Pacific right whales are known to interact with other cetacean species. Several observations of North Pacific right whales interacting with groups or solitary humpback whales have been recorded in both the Eastern and Western North Pacific. In 1998, a pair of gray whales was seen showing signs of aggression towards a right whale, chasing it off the coast of California, while in 2012, in the Piltun Bay region of Sakhalin Island's northeast coast, a young adult right whale was seen displaying typical social behavior within a group of critically endangered Western gray whales. ==== Vocalizations ==== Right whales in the Southern Hemisphere and the North Atlantic produce a variety of vocalizations that have been studied extensively over the past decade. Because the number of right whales in the North Pacific is so small and the whales are located in more remote areas, studying North Pacific right whale vocalizations has been more challenging, with fewer recordings. All of the sounds recorded for North Pacific right whales have been recorded on the northern portion of their range—in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska. It is unknown whether they made additional or different vocalizations on their wintering grounds or on the western part of their range. From these relatively few samples, it appears that right whales in the North Pacific make calls similar to those of other right whale species (Eubalaena spp.). However, the calls may differ in some details and in the relative frequency of their use. These calls are all low-frequency sounds that appear to have social communication functions, but what exactly those functions are is not yet known. There is no evidence that right whales' sounds are used for echolocation, as is seen in dolphins and toothed whales. Between 2000 and 2006, NOAA researchers deployed passive acoustic listening devices in the Ber…

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 those of other baleen whales among different ocean basins. Before 2000, right whales in the North Pacific were considered conspecific with right whales in the North Atlantic and Southern Hemisphere, and all were described as Eubalaena glacialis in the scientific literature. All these animals closely resemble each other in outward appearance. 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. The cladogram is a tool for visualizing and comparing the evolutionary relationships between taxa. The point where a node branches off is analogous to an evolutionary branching – the diagram can be read left-to-right, much like a timeline. The following cladogram of the family Balaenidae serves to illustrate the current scientific consensus as to the relationships between the North Pacific right whale and the other members of its family. E. japonica is a very large, thickset baleen whale. It very closely resembles the North Atlantic right whale (E. glacialis) and the southern right whale (E. australis), so much so that they were long thought to be just one species. Indeed, without knowing which ocean an individual came from, the physical similarities are so extensive that individuals can only be identified to species by genetic analysis. Compared with other right whale species, E. japonica may be slightly larger. Like other baleen whales, female North Pacific right whales are larger than males. Also, North Pacific brindle-colored individuals are less common than they are among southern right whales. E. japonica is easily distinguished from other North Pacific whale species by several fieldmarks: lack of dorsal fin or bump, very broad, black back, cyamid-covered callosities on the head and lips, a very arched jaw line, a very narrow rostrum, and often a V-shaped spout. North Pacific right whales can reach 15 to 19 m (49 to 62 ft) in length as adults, larger than the North Atlantic right whale. Typical body mass is from 50,000–90,000 kg (110,000–200,000 lb), or to 100,000 kg (220,000 lb) which weighs twice as of typical humpback whales. There is one record of a 19.8 m (65 ft) whale captured during illegal Soviet operations, while reliability of larger measurements of 20.7 m (68 ft) with 135,000 kg (298,000 lb) and 2 cases of 21–21.3 m (69–70 ft) one each from eastern and western pacific sides are uncertain. The largest officially recorded specimen was 17.4 m (57 ft) long and weighed 106.5–116 tonnes (117.4–127.9 short tons). They are much larger than gray or humpback whales and also being very stout, particularly when compared to the other large baleen whales such as blue and fin whales. For 10 North Pacific right whales taken in the 1960s, their girth in front of the flippers was 0.73 of the total length of the whale. There have been claims that pectoral fins of pacific right whale are larger in portion than the other right whales and more pointed, and there may exist shape differences of tail by individuals or sex. Additionally, differences in coloration and shape (minor) of baleen plates between the Pacific and Atlantic have been noted. On each side of the upper jaw are 200–270 baleen plates. These are narrow and approximately 3 m (9.8 ft) long, and are covered in very thin hairs. The pectora…

In adopting a Recovery Plan for the North Pacific right whale, the United States government (NOAA) described its evaluation of the various threats to the species' continued survival. Under Section 4(c)(2) of the Endangered Species Act, NOAA must review the status of all threatened and endangered species at least once every five years to determine if their listing status should be changed. NOAA published its most recent 5 Year Review of the status of the North Pacific Right Whale on February 13, 2024.

Researching and managing human interactions with whale populations that are geographically dispersed in remote, hard-to-reach areas is expensive. With governments around the North Pacific facing budget cuts, funding for such efforts is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain. Most of the research on right whales in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska was funded through proposed oil and gas exploration leases that have recently been deferred, and that funding has ended. The U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service reports, "Currently, there is no funding at all for North Pacific right whale research despite the critically endangered nature of this population." In Japan, the only system of collecting reports of large whales along the Japanese coast is the ICR Strandings Record – this applies only to stranded individuals, hence the limited knowledge about the biology of free-swimming right whales in Japan. There have been more unpublished or unreported right whale sightings confirmed by locals in recent years, including some important observations, such as a cow-calf pair near shore (personal contact). For example, a sailor on a yacht had a very close encounter with a cow-calf pair breaching off the Miura Peninsula in the early 2000s. This sighting was later confirmed by a local marine biologist working at an aquarium.

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 those of other baleen whales among different ocean basins. Before 2000, right whales in the North Pacific were considered conspecific with right whales in the North Atlantic and Southern Hemisphere, and all were described as Eubalaena glacialis in the scientific literature. All these animals closely resemble each other in outward appearance. 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. The cladogram is a tool for visualizing and comparing the evolutionary relationships between taxa. The point where a node branches off is analogous to an evolutionary branching – the diagram can be read left-to-right, much like a timeline. The following cladogram of the family Balaenidae serves to illustrate the current scientific consensus as to the relationships between the North Pacific right whale and the other members of its family.