Whales and New Jersey: Right Whales

The threat to right whales is not a new thing. By the time of the Plymouth colonists in the 1600s, the stock of right whales may have already been substantially reduced during the previous century by Basques who captured them in the waters between Labrador and Newfoundland.

The right whale is so-named because it was considered the "right" or correct whale for whaling ships to pursue. It swam slowly, was easy to approach and kill, and it didn't sink after death. Forty percent of a right whale's body weight is blubber, which is of relatively low density. Consequently, unlike many other species of whale, dead right whales float.

It was sought for both its oil which was used for lamps, and baleen which was used for corset stays and other objects.

Right whales (black whales) are actually three species of large baleen whales of the genus Eubalaena: the North Atlantic right whale (E. glacialis) seen off the New Jersey coast, the North Pacific right whale (E. japonica) and the Southern right whale (E. australis).

Northern Right Whale and calf

The right whale can be as long as 16.2 m (53 ft.). It is large and rotund, with mottled brown to nearly black coloring. Both chin and belly show some white, while the dark brownish to dark gray or black baleen plates are long (up to 8 feet) and black-although
they might look pale yellowish gray far offshore. The highly arched jaw curves upward. The head and sometimes the lips are characterized by a series of bumps called callosities. The pattern of callosities can be used to identify individuals. The bonnet, the biggest of these bumps, is located just in front of two large blowholes. The right whale has no dorsal ridge or fin. Broad flukes, which are dark underneath, have pointed tips that are very concave toward a deep notch.

When the right whales blow it is V-shaped when seen from ahead or behind.

At present, they are among the most endangered whales in the world, and they are protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act and Canada's Species at Risk Act.

There are about 400 individuals in existence in the western North Atlantic Ocean—they migrate between feeding grounds in the Labrador Sea and their winter calving areas off Georgia and Florida, an ocean area with heavy shipping traffic.

In the eastern North Atlantic, on the other hand—with a total population reaching into the low teens at best—scientists believe that they may already be functionally extinct.

Vessel strikes and entanglement in fixed fishing gear, which together account for nearly half of all North Atlantic right whale mortality since 1970, are their two greatest threats to recovery.

Whale, North Atlantic right**	Eubalaena glacialis**
Whale, blue**	Balaenoptera musculus**
Whale, fin**	Balaenoptera physalus**
Whale, humpback**	Megaptera novaeangliae**
Whale, sei**	Balaenoptera borealis**
Whale,sperm**	Physeter macrocephalus**
**Federally Endangered

MORE INFO njfishandwildlife.com/ensp/pdf/end-thrtened/whales.pdf