The Right Whale

As part of my Endangered series, this Northern Right Whale is breeching out of the World Book Encyclopedia, Vol. W.  Should it be any surprise that the “Whale” page in this 1970 tome features a large illustration of a whaler boat pursing its prey?  In the early whaling industry, they were called “the right whale” because they were easy to catch and produced a lot of oil.

The North Atlantic Right Whale is the second most endangered of all of the large whales, primarily due to human exploitation.  Despite being protected for over 80 years, their numbers are not increasing.  Awareness and efforts to conserve them have still not overcome the dangers of entanglement in fishing nets and ship collisions.

2018