sanctuary prohibits hunting, capturing, or injuring any marine 

 mammal within the sanctuary boundaries. It also bans the dumping 

 of "contaminated, explosive or electrical materials" and the 

 dredging, drilling, or alteration of the sea bottom in the 

 sanctuary. 



Additional measures to protect the calving and breeding 

 habitat of the northwest Atlantic humpback whale population could 

 be taken under the Convention for the Protection and Development 

 of the Marine Environment of the Wider Caribbean Region. 

 Commission efforts in this regard are discussed in Chapter V. 



Northern Right Whale (Eubalaena glacialis) 



The northern right whale is the world's most endangered 

 large whale. It occurs in the North Atlantic and North Pacific 

 Oceans and was reduced to exceedingly low levels throughout its 

 range by commercial whaling, which continued into the early 20th 

 century. In the 1930s, commercial hunting of right whales was 

 banned under a series of ad hoc agreements developed by the 

 League of Nations. That ban has been carried forward by the 

 International Whaling Commission since its inception in 1949. 

 Despite this protection, there is no evidence of increases in 

 either the North Atlantic Ocean or North Pacific Ocean 

 populations over the last 60 years. 



The largest of the remnant populations is in the western 

 North Atlantic Ocean off Canada and the United States where the 

 best available information suggests that about 350 animals 

 survive. Whaling records dating back to the 16th century 

 indicate that, during the 80-year period between 1530 and 1610, 

 Basque whalers off Newfoundland and Labrador in eastern Canada 

 took between 25,000 and 40,000 whales (about 300 to 500 animals 

 per year) . Although some of those animals were bowhead whales, 

 most are believed to have been right whales. 



Historically, northern right whales also occurred in the 

 eastern North Atlantic Ocean off Europe. Few, if any, animals 

 appear to remain in that area. In the North Pacific Ocean, right 

 whales may number only a few tens of animals and may be too few 

 to recover. There have been only a few documented sightings of 

 right whales in the North Pacific during the 1980s, and few, if 

 any, of those have involved more than two whales at once. 



Right whales spend much, if not most, of their time in 

 coastal waters. All areas known to be inhabited seasonally by 

 right whales in the western North Atlantic Ocean lie over the 

 continental shelf off the eastern United States and Canada and 

 some of those areas are directly adjacent to the coast. For 

 example, the only calving area known to be used regularly by 

 right whales in the western North Atlantic Ocean is in nearshore 



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