Bowhead Whale

Bowhead Whale, also known as the Greenland right whale or arctic whale, whale found in the icy waters of the Arctic ocean that has been hunted nearly to extinction. The bowhead is so named because its huge jaw is curved like an archer’s bow. Within the jaw are massive baleen plates—bony structures with a sievelike fringe that act as strainers when the whale feeds. Baleen was a prized commodity in the 19th century, at which time it was used in the manufacture of corsets, umbrellas, and other consumer items. The bowhead’s baleen is the largest of any whale, which made this mammal a prime target for whalers.

The bowhead whale stays near the edge of the Arctic ice pack, often in shallow water. Its migrations are short, following the formation and movement of ice: north in summer, south in winter. Bowhead whales are found in the North Atlantic from eastern Greenland to northern Hudson Bay. In the Pacific, they live off Alaska and Russia in the Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort seas.

Mature bowheads reach lengths of 14 to 18 m (46 to 59 ft) and weights of 55 to 100 tons. The large head, which includes up to 600 baleen plates over 3 m (10 ft) each, usually takes up about one-third of the whale's total body length. The body of a bowhead whale is smooth and rounded without fins, humps, ridges, or growths. It is dark black, gray, or brown in color with uneven white patches on the chin and sometimes around the base of the tail. The V-shaped blow—the stream of air and water spouted from the blowhole—is about 7 m (23 ft) high. The bowhead whale is heavily insulated—adults have blubber up to 70 cm (28 in) thick—which helps them to survive in the cold Arctic waters.

Bowhead whales often swim slowly on the surface with their mouths open to strain krill—tiny shrimplike crustaceans—from the water with the fringelike portion of their baleen plates, a feeding activity called skimming. They also use two other methods to catch nutrient-rich crustaceans from the ocean floor: column feeding, which is diving deep and then surfacing in the same location; and mud tracking, in which they swim through shallow water while stirring up the muddy bottom with their heavy tails.

Bowhead females give birth to a single baby whale after a gestation period of nearly a year, calving near the Arctic ice pack any time from March through August. Newborns range in size from 4 to 5 m (12 to 17 ft) and nurse for nearly a year, until the baleen is sufficiently formed for feeding on their own. Mature females probably give birth every 3 to 6 years.

The bowhead whale is an endangered species, protected from hunting since 1935 by international law. Overfishing, primarily in the 1800s, severely depleted the population. Estimates for the number of whales remaining range from 2000 up to 6000. Since receiving protected status, the bowhead whale population has increased slightly, growing at the slow rate of 3 percent per year. Environmental factors, such as climate change and water pollution, currently threaten the bowhead whale. Human impacts—from noncommercial hunting by indigenous peoples for life-sustaining and cultural purposes to offshore oil and gas development—continue to pose challenges to the survival of the bowheads.

Scientific classification: The bowhead whale is a member of the Balaenidae family in the order Cetacea, suborder Mysticeti. It is classified as Balaena mysticetus.

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