Habitat and Ecology
Habitat and Ecology
Systems
Little is known about habitat use by North Pacific right whales. The rarity of coastal records in winter in either historical or recent times suggest that their breeding grounds may have been offshore (Clapham et al. 2004). This is in contrast to southern right whales which form inshore breeding concentrations. There is clearly some migration northward in summer and southward in winter (Clapham et al. 2004), but the location of the wintering grounds is unknown. The historical catches show that in summer the species mainly occurred in the Bering Sea, Gulf of Alaska, Sea of Okhotsk and northern North Pacific.
Systems
- Marine
