Today I will be talking about the North Atlantic Right Whale! They were named based on where they are primarily found and by whalers for their abundant oil and blubber deeming them the “right” whale to hunt. They belong to the family of “baleen whales” which also includes humpbacks and blue whales. Baleen is a large hair-like structure made of keratin that allow these whales to strain huge volumes of water through their baleen plates filtering out shrimp, krill, and small fish. They can have hundreds of these plates lining the inside of their mouths, rather than teeth. Depending on the species, a baleen can range from 1.6 to 11.5 ft long and weigh up to 200 lbs. Not only are baleen whales identifiable by the baleen itself, but all of them have two blowholes visible on the top of their head. Females can grow to be 18m long and the males 12.9m! Their characteristic feature is the raised white patches of callused skin on their heads. Each whale has a unique pattern of these callosities, which help in identification! This species is listed as endangered, with an estimated 400 of the species remaining. In the 19th century and even before, commercial whalers and indigenous people hunted these whales in the coastal North Atlantic for oil and baleen. Even with conservation efforts over the years, their populations have had trouble recovering. It has been banned to hunt these whales since 1935, but nowadays their greatest threats are collisions with ships and entanglement by fishing gear. These whales are slow swimmers, which makes them especially susceptible to these threats. @sealegacy posted a photo on Nov 3rd about a heart wrenching case of entanglement of a young male North Atlantic Right Whale. The discarded fishing gear was weighing him to the bottom preventing him from breathing. It also had become so entangled that it was displacing and pushing out his baleen. I know these are long and perhaps hard to read at times, but thank you to those who make it to the end🐋
Originally posted on 2 December 2018
(not my pictures)
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