. Cetaceans of the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary. Cetacea; Mammals. Rii;hc whales, Eiihalticttit glacialn i Borowski. 1781), are the most endangered of the world's whales. A prime quarry of yankee whalers ever\^vhere. right whales were hunted relentlessly in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the North Pacific, such hunt- ing was most intense m the Bering Sea, north temperate North Pacific and Gulf ot Alaska, but, as Scammon reported, some right whales were taken "from February to ,April as tar south as Bahia Sebastian Vizcaino and near Cedros Island &quo
. Cetaceans of the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary. Cetacea; Mammals. Rii;hc whales, Eiihalticttit glacialn i Borowski. 1781), are the most endangered of the world's whales. A prime quarry of yankee whalers ever\^vhere. right whales were hunted relentlessly in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the North Pacific, such hunt- ing was most intense m the Bering Sea, north temperate North Pacific and Gulf ot Alaska, but, as Scammon reported, some right whales were taken "from February to ,April as tar south as Bahia Sebastian Vizcaino and near Cedros Island ". We have located further unpublished records, from 19th century whaling logs, which document sightings and chases of right whales east of Guadalupe Island in April of i8s6. Collectively these tew records demonstrate that before the populations were se- verely depleted by whaling, right whales once occurred from at least as far south as central Baja California tiorth to Arctic waters. A few were encountered and killed by shore whalers operating from San Diego Bay in the years 18 5 o-1870. Other sightings and cathes in the eastern North Pacific, as plotted by Maury, Townsend and others, were mostly in the Gulf of Alaska and northern North Pacific, tending to be progressively farther seaward as one moves south of most important whaling grounds. Movements of right whales between summer and winter grounds, including those off Baja California, presumably placed some right whales, at least seasonally, in or near the SCB and CINMS. By some accounts, right whales may never have been very abundant in the northeastern Pacific. According to Scammon, by 1874 ^^^'^' were already considered rare and sightings and takes were exceptional. Nevertheless, whalers, operating from yankee whale boats, shore stations and, later, pelagic fleets continued to take right whales when- ever they found them until the species was protected by international convention in 1956. We know of ten right whales ta
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookcoll, booksubjectcetacea, booksubjectmammals
