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Enormous, gentle, and playful, right whales have had the misfortune of being defined, even named, according to their value as hunted rather than living creatures. Whalers named the species thinking that these were the “right whales” to kill because they’re slow swimmers, they swim within sight of shore, and their carcasses float. Right whales were hunted for oil, meat, and apparel materials — for corset stays, umbrella ribs, and buggy whips — until the early 20th century.
ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT PROFILE
PROTECTION STATUS: Endangered
YEAR PLACED ON LIST: 1970 (as single species with North Atlantic right whale); 2008 (as distinct species)
CRITICAL HABITAT: 36,750 square miles in the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea designated in 2006
RECOVERY PLAN: 1991
RANGE: Rare sightings reported in the mouth of the Sea of Okhotsk and in the eastern Bering Sea
THREATS: Oil and gas exploration and development, collisions with ships, entanglement in commercial fishing gear, industrial pollution, and global warming
POPULATION TREND: There are likely fewer than 50 North Pacific right whales in the northeast Pacific Ocean and perhaps 100 left in the northwest Pacific today.
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SAVING THE NORTH PACIFIC RIGHT WHALE
Once abundant, the North Pacific right whale is the most endangered whale in the world. So rare is this whale that in the 1980s, a sighting of a single individual was deemed worthy of publication in scientific journals. Beginning in 1996, scientists began to see a congregation of right whales annually in the Bering Sea, and by 2005 they had found more right whales in this area than in any of the previous five years.
These sightings are a far cry from showing a healthy, stable population, but they do mean that there is still a chance to save this species from extinction. The Center has been leading an international fight to protect critical habitat for the North Pacific right whale since 2000.
In that year, we formally requested that the National Marine Fisheries Service protect the North Pacific right whale’s critical habitat as required by the Endangered Species Act. After putting up with years of agency inaction and delay, the Center was forced to sue the Service to insure habitat protection. Eventually, the Service designated critical habitat for the North Pacific right whale in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska.
Though the North Pacific right whale has been considered officially endangered for almost 40 years, it long shared its Endangered Species Act listing with the North Atlantic right whale, thus not receiving the individual recognition and protection it deserved. But in 2008, in response to the Center’s 2005 petition and 2006 lawsuit, the Service listed the whale as endangered as a distinct species, significantly increasing the whale’s legal protection and triggering requirements to prepare a recovery plan and take other measures for the species’ conservation. Unfortunately, on the same day the whale’s individual endangered species status was made final, the Bush administration announced it was moving forward with a proposal to open up essential whale habitat to oil and gas leasing.
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Contact: Brendan Cummings
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