All species / Balaenoptera acutorostrata

Balaenoptera acutorostrata

Minke Whale · Lacépède, 1804

Red List, global: LC; Least Concern, 2018
First CITES listing: II; Appendix II, 1979
CITES trade records: 3,271; 1980–2023 · exporter-reported
Unit dimensions: 5; reported separately, never summed
NAMMCO catch entries: 211; catch records
Seizure records: 0; reported taxon matches

One of 43: each square a species, coloured by its latest global Red List category, this one ringed. Common Minke Whale is among the cetaceans.

In summary derived

Balaenoptera acutorostrata, Minke Whale, is placed in family Balaenopteridae, order Cetacea, class Mammalia. It was first listed in Appendix II in 1979. The earliest CITES listing row the corpus holds for it is Appendix I, dated 1986, a later entry than the 1979 listing. The corpus records 6 dated listing rows in total. The corpus lists it under more than one appendix, which marks a split-population listing: different populations sit under different appendices rather than the species moving between them.

Its latest global Red List assessment is Least Concern, published 2018. It carries 2 earlier global assessments on the current scale and 2 on scales that were superseded before the current categories and cannot be compared with them.

The corpus holds 3,271 exporter-reported CITES trade records for it, from 1980 to 2023, reported across 5 unit dimensions. The most frequently recorded term is carvings: 1,469 records across 2 unit dimensions, of which 1,274 are measured in specimens. NAMMCO records 211 catch entries, from 1992 to 2023, totalling 21,900 animals reported by NAMMCO member countries, counting each year's area reports, or its national total where the year reports no area. Attribution is by the taxon name each report gave. No seizure record in the corpus is attributed to it.

Composed from 19 corpus fields, by template, with no model

species.class
species.family
species.order_name
species_catch.catch_total
species_catch.year
species_iucn.is_global
species_iucn.status
species_iucn.year_published
species_listing.appendix
species_listing.listing_date
species_listing_event.appendix
species_listing_event.event_date
species_seizure.*
species_trade.dimension
species_trade.first_year
species_trade.last_year
species_trade.record_count
species_trade.reporter_type
species_trade.term

Each sentence is generated from the columns above and nothing else. The same corpus produces the same text every time. Where a field is absent the sentence is omitted rather than hedged.

Overview curated

Taxonomy entered by a named curator and versioned in the repository.

Class: Mammalia
Order: Cetacea
Family: Balaenopteridae
First CITES listing: 19796 listing rows; later ones are amendments
Global Red List status: LCLeast Concern, assessed 2018
Regional status (Europe): LCRegional, 2023. Not the species status.

Content withheld pending expert review

8 narrative sections for this species were machine-drafted and are not shown. No subject expert has reviewed and signed them.

Trade derived

CITES Trade Database v2025.1, extracted 13 June 2025.

There is no single trade total

Quantities are reported per unit dimension, per traded term, and per reporting side. These are not additive: kilograms and individual animals have no common unit, a live animal is not a carving, and an importer report and an exporter report are two accounts of one shipment rather than two shipments.

Figures below are exporter-reported.

count in specimens: 2,394 records, 73%
mass in kg: 671 records, 21%
packaging in containers: 199 records, 6%
volume in L: 5 records, <1%
area in m²: 2 records, <1%

Records per dimension. Not additive across units.

Trade over time

Peak 214 records in 2005. Trade records per year, exporter-reported, every term and unit counted as records, not quantities.

Peak 210 specimens in 2012. Quantity of carvings, the term with most records (1,274), in specimens, exporter-reported. Other terms are in the tables below, each in its own unit.

count measured in specimens

2,394 of 3,271 records carry a quantity in specimens. CITES leaves the unit blank to mean a count of the term.

carvings1,274

bones403

baleen257

specimens228

bone carvings88

jewellery33

meat24

unspecified22

Top 8 of 18. Bars count trade records per term, not specimens, all sources combined; the table splits them by source and gives the quantity in specimens.

Term	Quantity	Records	Years	Source
carvings	1,793 specimens	1,263	1985–2022	W
bones	1,000 specimens	346	1986–2023	W
baleen	360 specimens	254	2005–2023	W
specimens	10,947 specimens	189	1989–2023	W
bone carvings	91 specimens	82	2018	W
bones	74 specimens	56	2000–2023	O
jewellery	51 specimens	33	2016–2022	W
specimens	31 specimens	29	2008–2018	O
meat	379 specimens	23	1987–2017	W
unspecified	25 specimens	20	2000–2005	W
bodies	16 specimens	16	2016–2021	W
skeletons	13 specimens	13	2003–2021	W

Showing the 12 term and source combinations with the most records, of 34.

mass measured in kg

671 of 3,271 records carry a quantity in kg.

meat621

specimens39

bones6

derivatives2

baleen2

bone pieces1

Bars count trade records per term, not kg, all sources combined; the table splits them by source and gives the quantity in kg.

Term	Quantity	Records	Years	Source
meat	2,500,833.15 kg	583	1985–2023	W
meat	2,727,879 kg	38	1980–1987	not recorded
specimens	559.64 kg	38	1991–2022	W
bones	73 kg	5	2009–2016	W
derivatives	10,000 kg	2	2013	W
baleen	2.5 kg	2	2010–2018	W
specimens	2 kg	1	1983	not recorded
bones	50 kg	1	2002	O
bone pieces	0.7 kg	1	2012	W

packaging measured in containers

199 of 3,271 records carry a quantity in containers.

carvings195

bones3

specimens1

Bars count trade records per term, not containers, all sources combined; the table splits them by source and gives the quantity in containers.

Term	Quantity	Records	Years	Source
carvings	238 containers	195	2001–2005	W
bones	3 containers	3	2001–2005	W
specimens	6 containers	1	1998	W

2 smaller units: L (5 records), m² (2 records)

volume measured in L

5 of 3,271 records carry a quantity in L.

Term	Quantity	Records	Years	Source
specimens	42.79 L	5	1997–2012	W

area measured in m²

2 of 3,271 records carry a quantity in m². Area is the surface of the item traded as the Party reported it, for example a skin sample in square centimetres; every area unit is converted to m².

Term	Quantity	Records	Years	Source
specimens	0.00200 m²	2	2003–2006	W

CITES listings curated

CoP decisions, cross-checked against the appendix reported on trade records.

Retained and flagged

This species has a split listing: its populations are listed under different appendices, and no single appendix describes it.

Main Population: Appendix I, from 2004
West Greenland Stock: Appendix II, from 2000

First listed on 1979-06-28, in Appendix II, from the CITES listing history. The table below holds the species' current listing entries, which begin later; earlier coverage is often under a higher taxon.

Date	Appendix	Annotation	Status
1986-01-01	I	Except stock of west Greenland.	earliest current entry
1986-01-01	I	Except the population of West Greenland, which is included in Appendix II.	amendment
1986-01-01	II	Population of West Greenland.	amendment
2000-04-02	I	Except stock of west Greenland.	amendment
2000-04-02	II	West Greenland stock.	amendment
2004-07-15	I	none	amendment

Convention on Migratory Species

Not CMS-listed. Covered by ACCOBAMS, Pacific Islands Cetaceans, a daughter agreement with its own annexes, not a CMS appendix listing.

IUCN Red List derived

Assessment history. Scope is always stated: a regional assessment is not the species status.

This history crosses a criteria revision

Categories from before 2001 come from earlier Red List systems. Three kinds are kept apart.

LR/lc and LR/nt are the modern LC and NT under their old names, so they are plotted as those categories and the line runs through them: nothing changed but the wording.

LR/cd was discontinued with no successor. This project reads it as Near Threatened, following a published crosswalk between the old and new Red List systems, and the chart marks such a point hollow and names both codes, because placing a category is not the same as finding it published.

The pre-1994 codes (E, V, K, T and the rest) are not on the risk order at all, so they sit below the axis and the line breaks across them. A category change across a criteria revision is not a change in extinction risk, and none of these is scored as a movement: the ledger refuses every one of them at gate 3.

published global assessment
not on this scale (below the axis)
regional assessment, never joined

Vertical position is the IUCN risk order, not a measured quantity: the gaps between categories are equal on the page and not in nature. Anything that is not one of the nine modern categories carries no position on that order — Data Deficient, a superseded category, or a record that no assessment was made — so it sits below the axis and the line breaks across it rather than joining through. Each point names which it is. Regional assessments are shown but never joined to global ones; they describe a different population. The dashed step crosses the 2001 revision of the Red List criteria: the category codes on either side match, the criteria behind them do not, so the step is shown and not measured.

Category movement since listing: not scored. Gate 3: the baseline category K comes from a pre-2001 Red List system and is not on the modern ordinal scale. Insufficiently Known (pre-1994; not a risk category). How this is defined and why some species are not scored

Year	Category	Meaning	Scope	Status
2023	LC	Least Concern	Europe	current for this scope
2018	LC	Least Concern	Global	current for this scope
2008	LC	Least Concern	Global
2007	LC	Least Concern	Global
1996	LR/nt	Lower Risk, near threatened (1994 system)	Global
1994	K	Insufficiently Known (pre-1994; not a risk category)	Global

Reported catch derived

NAMMCO catch exports dated 11 June 2025. A reported zero is stored as zero, distinct from an unknown.

Year	Area	Catch	Quota
2023	CM	0	253
2023	E	507	747
2023	East	18	24
2023	Iceland Coastal (CIC)	0	260
2023	Total	507	1,000
2023	West	164	188
2022	CM	0	253
2022	E	581	664
2022	East	17	21
2022	Iceland Coastal (CIC)	0	260
2022	Total	586	917
2022	West	146	206
2021	CM	0	170
2021	E	577	1,108
2021	East	21	22
2021	Iceland Coastal (CIC)	1	260
2021	Total	586	1,278
2021	West	167	219
2020	CM	0	170
2020	E	505	1,108
2020	East	20	23
2020	Iceland Coastal (CIC)	0	217
2020	Total	505	1,278
2020	Total	182	239
2020	West	162	216
2019	CM	0	170
2019	E	429	1,108
2019	East	11	20
2019	Iceland Coastal (CIC)	0	217
2019	Total	429	1,278
2019	Total	171	184
2019	West	160	164
2018	CM	0	170
2018	E	454	1,108
2018	East	2	15
2018	Iceland Coastal (CIC)	6	217
2018	Total	118	194
2018	Total	454	1,278
2018	West	116	179
2017	CM	0	170

A row whose area is a total is NAMMCO's own aggregate of that year's areas, not an area to add to them.

Showing 40 of 211 records.

Illegal trade seizures derived

Seizure records whose reported taxon resolves to this species.

What the seizure source records

No seizure in the compilation names this species. Matching is on the taxon the source reported, case aside. Across the whole compilation, 225 of 919 rows match one of the 43 species and the rest name other taxa.

Quantities are unitless. The source gives no date or place, so the table shows the product and the reported taxon.

No seizure records attributed to this species.

References withheld

Machine-proposed bindings. Shown only where an expert has signed the profile and the binding is live.

No references are recorded for this species: none is shown, and none was machine-proposed for review.

Timeline curated

Curated events. Those with no corroborating table in this database are marked.

Date	Event	Type	Corroboration
2023	IUCN Red List Assessment (2023)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
2021-06-15	CITES Trade: meat	cites_trade	checked against `cites_trade_records`
2019-08-13	CITES Trade Suspension	cites_suspension	curated
2018-06-15	CITES Trade: specimens	cites_trade	checked against `cites_trade_records`
2018-03-26	CITES Trade Suspension	cites_suspension	curated
2018	IUCN Red List Assessment (2018)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
2015-04-09	CITES Trade Suspension	cites_suspension	curated
2010-11-29	CITES Trade Suspension	cites_suspension	curated
2008	IUCN Red List Assessment (2008)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
2007	IUCN Red List Assessment (2007)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
2006-01-16	CITES Trade Suspension	cites_suspension	curated
2004-07-15	Listed in CITES Appendix I	cites_listing	checked against `cites_listings`
2000-04-02	Listed in CITES Appendix II	cites_listing	checked against `cites_listings`
1996	IUCN Red List Assessment (1996)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
1994	IUCN Red List Assessment (1994)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
1986-01-01	Listed in CITES Appendix I	cites_listing	checked against `cites_listings`

Events marked curated are not matched by a row in a corroborating table, either because none applies or because the table holds no such row, and rest on the curator alone. They are shown, and marked, rather than presented as equivalent to a table-checked fact.