Northern right whales were among the first of the great whales to be slaughtered in vast numbers. Hundreds of thousands were killed in the last several centuries; the species has never recovered.

Right whales were named by whalers, who considered them the "right" whale to hunt. They couldn't have invented a more obliging animal: right whales are big, slow-moving targets that feed and calve near the surface. Even better, dead right whales generally float, which greatly facilitated the towing and processing of carcasses.

Commercial exploitation of the right whale for whale oil, baleen, and other products has a long history, starting in the tenth century AD in the coastal waters of Europe. Open-ocean whaling did not become a global industry until the early nineteenth century. When it did, the slaughter became relentless. By this time, northern right whales had already become so scarce that whalers turned their attention to other species.

Today the right whale remains extremely rare, and it is clearly among the most endangered of all whale species. The population in the North Atlantic is estimated to lie between 240 and 500 individuals; in the North Pacific, it is possible that fewer than 200 survive.