2010 right whale names are due!

The 2010 North Atlantic Right Whale Naming Deadline is approaching!

This year 15 whales are up for naming. If you want to submit a name for a whale, send it to me and (if I think it's not a completely stupid name), I'll send it in to the North Atlantic Right Whale team. All submissions must be in by November 20th, 2010. Anybody can propose a name; the final choice will be selected by vote of the right whale researchers.

Names are usually based on the mother's name (i.e., families of related whales will often be given names on the same theme), distinctive scars, behavior, or the past history of that whale. Examples: Whale "Shackleton", who explored his way up a river and nearly died, was named after the famous Arctic explorer. Whale "Starry Night" is covered with little white dots; whale "Piper" has a scar that looks like a Piper Cub airplane. Whale "Calvin", an unusually inquisitive, active calf, was named after the kid in the Calvin & Hobbes comic strip. Whale "Phoenix" rose from the dead one year, reappearing after surviving a horrible entanglement that everybody thought had killed her.

Here are the whales - the list shows the whale's id number, its age and sex, and identifying features.

Whale 1280 - 28+ y.o. unknown sex. Scar on right head.
Whale 1317 - 27 y.o. male. Scars on back or callosity.
Whale 1611 - 24 y.o. female. Scar on right side and two islands back by coaming on each side is distinctive
Whale 1821 - 22 + y.o. male. Callosity, pbh callosity, scar on back.
Whale 2614 - 14 y.o. female. Lip scars, central callosity, mom this year, 3 y.o. son also up for naming (whale 3714).
Whale 2615 -14 y.o. male. Weird callosity forward of coaming
Whale 2642 -14 y.o. female. Left fluke tip, daughter of Kleenex, mom this year
Whale 2710 -13 y.o. female. Scars, odd callosity, daughter of Stumpy.
Whale 3040 - 14 y.o. male. Scar in callosity, single pbh
Whale 3301 - 7 y.o. male. Callosity offset, scar right head
Whale 3360 - 7 + y.o. female. Distinctive callosity and subtle scar by right coaming
Whale 3603 - 4 y.o. female. Daughter of Trilogy, grand-daughter of Baldy, missing part of right fluke
Whale 3701 - 3 y.o. unknown sex. Offspring of Aphrodite, distinctive callosity.
Whale 3714 - 3 y.o. male. Son of 2614 (also up for a name), had been entangled and on national news, lots of orgs involved with this whale that might like to vote, interesting bonnet
Whale 3745 - 3 y.o. male. Two large series of propeller cuts, son of Insignia.

More about right whale naming:
The North Atlantic right whales have the unfortunate honor of being the most endangered species of whale in the world. Once probably numbering in the millions, there are now only about 375 of them. Most are individually known by the right whale researchers, and almost all are named. The primary purpose of naming the whales is to help field researchers rapidly identify whales in the field (because humans more rapidly remember the identity and past history of animals that are named, compared to animals that just have numbers). A secondary purpose is to help the public connect with individual whales; this is especially useful when an entangled whale gets a lot of media coverage. Voting will favor names that (a) are based on readily visible physical features that will help field researchers identify a whale rapidly from a boat; (b) are tasteful and "palatable to the public" (gone are the days when we could name a whale calf "Snot" just because its mother was "Kleenex"); (c) not names of corporations and usually not proper names, unless (like "Calvin") the name relates to some distinctive feature or behavior of the whale.