North Pacific Right Whale
(Eubalaena japonica)
Research
ADF&G has contributed funding to the acoustic monitoring of North Pacific right whales. In August 2004, the Cetacean Assessment and Ecology Program (CAEP) at the National Marine Mammal Laboratory initiated a North Pacific right whale tagging project. This is a collaborative study with the whale-tagging group at the Greenland Institute for Natural Resources in Copenhagen, Denmark. Three main questions are being addressed by this study:
- Where do North Pacific right whales go in winter?
- What migratory route do they take to get to their wintering grounds?
- Do right whales found in the southeast Bering Sea in summer also use other feeding areas in Alaska?
The project should provide information about specific habitat use in the Bering Sea, with the potential for investigating the oceanographic conditions of those areas.
For more information on this project and other research on North Pacific right whales please visit Alaska Fisheries Science Center - North Pacific Right Whale website.