One of the 7 whales on WAnimals
Mammals · Artiodactyla · Balaenidae
North Pacific Right Whale
Eubalaena japonica
It faces a very high risk of extinction in the wild in the near future. See full glossary
The North Pacific right whale is probably the rarest great cetacean in the world. It is a robust baleen whale, with no dorsal fin, its head covered in callosities and baleen plates up to three metres long with which it filters copepods and krill. It was decimated by nineteenth-century commercial whaling and, once already protected, the illegal Soviet whaling of the 1960s finished off the eastern population. Today the Bering Sea subpopulation is counted in dozens of animals.
Weight
50 t – 90 t
Size
15 m – 18 m
Lifespan
70 years
Diet
Carnivore
Feeds mainly on other animals.
Activity
Irregular activity
Active at irregular times, by day or night depending on circumstances.
Social structure
Solitary
Lives and hunts alone, joining others only to breed.
Sighting difficulty
Hard
Estimated population
A few hundred in all; the eastern subpopulation (the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska) is estimated at about 30 individuals
Fun facts
- The callosities on its head form a different pattern in each individual, which allows them to be identified as if by fingerprint.
- It was called the right whale because it was the right whale to hunt: it swims slowly, comes close inshore and floats when killed thanks to its enormous layer of blubber.
Life cycle & biology
- Skeleton type
- Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (mammal)
- Habitat & environment
- Cold and temperate waters of the North Pacific, the Bering Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk
- Birth weight
- Around 1,000 kg
- Size at birth
- About 4-4.5 m long at birth
- Sexual maturity
- 9 years
- Gestation / incubation
- 12 months
- Litter / clutch size
- 1
Sources consulted: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eubalaena_japonica
Where to find it
See its range on the interactive mapBest time: May to August in the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska; with fewer than a hundred individuals in the eastern subpopulation, a sighting is exceptional.
Where to watch it
Parks and dive sites where this species has been documented.
Related species
Other species in the catalogue with the most in common with North Pacific Right Whale — same habitat, park, country, tags or family.
EndangeredNorth Atlantic Right Whale
Eubalaena glacialis
EndangeredSea Otter
Enhydra lutris
EndangeredKiller Whale
Orcinus orca
Shortfin Mako
Isurus oxyrinchus
Sei Whale
Balaenoptera borealis
Bowhead Whale
Balaena mysticetus
How to help
The north pacific right whale is classified as endangered. Organizations such as UICN, WWF y Wildlife Conservation Society work specifically on its conservation and that of its habitat; looking into their programs is a good starting point if you want to get involved.
It's documented in 3 real protected areas — part of why protecting these places matters for its conservation.
Keep exploring
Based on what we already know about north pacific right whale.
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