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Eubalaena glacialis
– Endangered
Taxonomy
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Kingdom:
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ANIMALIA
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Phylum:
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CHORDATA
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Class:
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MAMMALIA
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Order:
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CETACEA
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Family:
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BALAENIDAE
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Scientific Name:
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Eubalaena glacialis
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Species Authority:
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P.L.S. Müller, 1776
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Synonym/s:
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Eubalaena glacialis P.L.S. Müller, 1776 (North Atlantic stock)
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Common Name/s:
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| English | — | NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE |
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Taxonomic Notes:
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Was in the 1996-2002 IUCN Red Lists as the North Atlantic stock of E. glacialis.
Reeves et al. (2003): "Rice (1989) used the genus name Balaena for the Right Whales and recognised only one species, B. glacialis, with two subspecies, B. g. glacialis, the Northern Hemisphere Right Whale, and B. g. australis, the Southern Hemisphere Right Whale. He also noted that populations on the east and west sides of both the North Atalntic and North Pacific were "probably at least partially discrete". Recent genetic analyses support the concept of three separate species, one in the North Atlantic, one in the North Pacific, and one in the Southern Hemisphere (Rosenbaum et al. 2000, IWC 2001b). Also, the IWC Scientific Committee has decided to retain the genus name Eubalaena. North Atlantic and North Pacific stocks of right whales were designated EN in the 1996 Red List, and therefore this status can sensibly be "transferred" to the two species, E. glacialis and E. japonica, respectively."
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Assessment Information
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Red List Category & Criteria:
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EN D ver 2.3 (1994)
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Year Assessed:
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1996
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Annotations:
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Needs updating
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Assessor/s:
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Cetacean Specialist Group
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Justification:
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Extract from Reeves et al. (2003, p. 33): "The North Atlantic population (Eubalaena glacialis) consists of a remnant of about 300–350 individuals off the east coast of North America. Some members of this population migrate annually to a near-shore winter calving ground off northern Florida and Georgia and then back northward through New England waters and on to summer feeding areas off southeastern Canada. Right Whales are occasionally seen in European waters, but the species is close to extinction in the eastern North Atlantic (Notarbartolo di Sciara et al. 1998). An intensive long-term effort, based primarily at the New England Aquarium in Boston and the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service laboratory in Woods Hole, is underway to monitor the North Atlantic Right Whale population, identify risk factors, and develop and implement measures to reduce human-induced mortality and injury (Katona and Kraus 1999, Right Whale Recovery Team 2000). Recent evidence of decreased survival and reproductive rates indicates that the population may be declining (Caswell et al. 1999)."
This assessement was previously in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species under the name Eubalaena glacialis North Atlantic stock. With the recognition that the North Pacific stock constitutes a different species (E. japonica), the former species level assessment falls away and is replaced by this.
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History:
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| 1965 | - | "Status inadequately known-survey required or data sought" as E. glacialis (North Atlantic stock) and E. sieboldi (Scott 1965) |
| 1986 | - | Endangered (IUCN Conservation Monitoring Centre 1986) |
| 1988 | - | Endangered (IUCN Conservation Monitoring Centre 1988) |
| 1990 | - | Endangered (IUCN 1990) |
| 1994 | - | Endangered (Groombridge 1994) |
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Geographic Range
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Range Description:
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"In the North Atlantic, occurs during the summer from Davis Strait, Denmark Strait, and the Norwegian Sea south to Massachusetts and the Bay of Biscay; during the winter ranges south to Florida and the Golfo de Cintra (23°N), Western Sahara; vagrant to the Gulf of Mexico; populations on the American and European sides of the Atlantic are probably at least partially discrete" (Rice 1998).
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Countries:
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Native:
Bahamas; Belgium; Bermuda; Canada; Faroe Islands; France; Germany; Greenland; Iceland; Ireland; Italy; Morocco; Netherlands; Portugal; Spain; Svalbard and Jan Mayen; United Kingdom; United States
Vagrant:
Mexico
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FAO Marine Fishing Areas:
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Native:
Atlantic-northwest; Atlantic-western central
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Habitat and Ecology
Threats
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Threats:
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Extract from Reeves et al. (2003, p. 34): "In the absence of direct hunts, the most serious continuing threats to Right Whales in the Northern Hemisphere are ship-strikes and entanglement in fishing gear. More than half of the living Right Whales in the western North Atlantic have experienced at least one ship-strike or net entanglement, and at least a third of the deaths in this population each year are thought to be directly linked to human activities (cf. Kraus 1990, Kenney and Kraus 1993, IWC 2001b). Deaths from entanglement in fishing gear have also been documented recently in the western North Pacific (Brownell et al. 2001).
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