Marine Mammal Training

Right Whale

Right whales average 50 feet in length and can weigh as much as 45 tons! Their enormous heads are almost 1/3 the total body length.

Early whale hunters called these large marine mammals the ‘right’ whale to kill, because right whales are slow compared to other species, generally inhabit coastal areas, float when dead, and yield large quantities of blubber and oil. There are two species of right whales: Eubalaena australis found in the Southern Hemisphere, and Eubalaena glacialis found in the Northern Hemisphere. 

The head of a right whale has distinctive patches of thickened skin, known as callosities. The right whale is also characterized by the lack of a dorsal (top) fin and a v-shaped spout from two blowholes. Northern right whales have been sighted from Iceland to Florida, breeding in warmer southeastern US waters during the winter, and returning to feed in the nutrient-rich cold water further north in the spring and summer.

Despite over 60 years of protection from a League of Nations ban on hunting right whales, both northern and southern right whale populations are endangered. Nearly one-third of right whale deaths are still from human causes, including ship collisions, entanglements in fishing gear, and habitat degradation. Today there are fewer than 300 right whales in the North Atlantic Ocean.

Photograph by Brian Skerry, National Geographic Southern right whale eye, New Zealand, 2007 (From the National Geographic book Ocean Soul by Brian Skerry) Article Paleontological Research Institution 

(Source: randomnessnstuff, via certified-0rca)