The Life of Animals | Bowhead Whale | The bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus) is a baleen whale of the right whale family Balaenidae in suborder Mysticeti. This thick-bodied species can weigh 75 tonnes (74 long tons; 83 short tons) to 100 tonnes (98 long tons; 110 short tons) second only to the blue whale, although the bowhead's maximum length is less than several other whales. It lives entirely in fertile Arctic and sub-Arctic waters, unlike other whales that migrate to feed or reproduce. It is also known as Greenland right whale or Arctic whale. The bowhead is perhaps the longest-living mammal, and has the largest mouth of any animal
The bowhead was an early whaling target. The population is estimated to be over 24,900 worldwide, down from an estimated 50,000 before whaling.The bowhead whale currently occupies a monotypic genus, separate from the other right whales, as it has done since the work of Gray in 1821. It is thought Balaena prisca, one of the five Balaena fossils from the late Miocene (~10 mya) to early Pleistocene (~1.5 mya), may be the same as the modern bowhead whale. The bowhead whale has a robust, dark-colored body, no dorsal fin and a strongly bowed lower jaw and narrow upper jaw. Its baleen, the longest of any whale at 3 m (9.8 ft), strains tiny prey from the water. The bowhead whale is highly vocal, and uses underwater sounds to communicate while traveling, feeding, and socializing. Some bowheads make long repetitive songs that may be mating calls. Observations of very large animals without calves support this hypothesis. The bowhead population around Alaska has increased since commercial whaling ceased. This level of killing (25–40 animals annually) is not expected to affect the population's recovery. In March, 2008, Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans stated that previous estimates in the Eastern Arctic had undercounted, with a new estimate of 14,400 animals (r. 4,800–43,000) These larger numbers correspond to pre-whaling estimates, indicating this population has fully recovered.
The bowhead whale is the only baleen whale that spends its entire life in and around Arctic waters. The Alaskan population spends the winter months in the southwestern Bering Sea. The bowhead whale has been hunted for blubber, meat, oil, bones, and baleen. Like right whales, it swims slowly, and floats after death, making it ideal for whaling. Before commercial whaling, there were an estimated 50,000 bowheads In 1611, the first whaling expedition sailed to Spitsbergen. By mid-century, the population(s) there had practically been wiped out, forcing whalers to voyage into the "West Ice"—the pack ice off Greenland's east coast. In the North Pacific, commercial bowhead whaling began in the 1840s, and within two decades wiped out over 60 percent of the bowheads.
