All species / Balaenoptera borealis

Balaenoptera borealis

Sei Whale · Lesson, 1828

Red List, global: EN; Endangered, 2018
First CITES listing: I; Appendix I, 1977
CITES trade records: 86; 1981–2023 · exporter-reported
Unit dimensions: 4; reported separately, never summed
NAMMCO catch entries: none; NAMMCO reports a subset of marine mammals
Seizure records: 0; reported taxon matches

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

In summary derived

Balaenoptera borealis, Sei Whale, is placed in family Balaenopteridae, order Cetacea, class Mammalia. It was first listed in Appendix I in 1977. The earliest CITES listing row the corpus holds for it is Appendix I, dated 1981, a later entry than the 1977 listing. The corpus records 3 dated listing rows in total.

Its latest global Red List assessment is Endangered, published 2018. It carries 3 earlier global assessments on the current scale and 1 on a scale that was superseded before the current categories and cannot be compared with them. An assessment at Europe scope records Least Concern. This site reports the global category; the two are not interchangeable.

The corpus holds 86 exporter-reported CITES trade records for it, from 1981 to 2023, reported across 4 unit dimensions. The most frequently recorded term is specimens: 57 records across 4 unit dimensions, of which 36 are measured in specimens. The corpus holds no NAMMCO catch records for it. 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_iucn.is_global
species_iucn.scope_code
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: 19773 listing rows; later ones are amendments
Global Red List status: ENEndangered, 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: 48 records, 56%
mass in kg: 31 records, 36%
packaging in containers: 5 records, 6%
area in m²: 2 records, 2%

Records per dimension. Not additive across units.

Trade over time

Peak 8 records in 2020. Trade records per year, exporter-reported, every term and unit counted as records, not quantities.

Peak 210 specimens in 1999. Quantity of specimens, the term with most records (36), in specimens, exporter-reported. Other terms are in the tables below, each in its own unit.

count measured in specimens

48 of 86 records carry a quantity in specimens. CITES leaves the unit blank to mean a count of the term.

specimens36

skin pieces6

bones4

teeth1

derivatives1

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
specimens	597 specimens	34	1995–2022	W
skin pieces	130 specimens	6	1998–2018	W
bones	5 specimens	3	1998–2005	W
specimens	39 specimens	2	1991–2019	O
teeth	4 specimens	1	1988	not recorded
bones	3 specimens	1	1992	O
derivatives	2 specimens	1	2005	W

mass measured in kg

31 of 86 records carry a quantity in kg.

specimens14

bones9

baleen3

skin pieces2

skins2

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
specimens	7.84 kg	13	2001–2023	W
bones	1,009.55 kg	6	2013–2023	W
bones	361 kg	3	1981–1982	not recorded
baleen	12.09 kg	3	2019–2023	W
skin pieces	0.06 kg	2	2019–2020	W
skins	0.04 kg	2	2013–2019	W
specimens	42 kg	1	1985	not recorded
bone pieces	0.6 kg	1	2020	W

packaging measured in containers

5 of 86 records carry a quantity in containers.

Term	Quantity	Records	Years	Source
specimens	10 containers	5	1999–2002	W

area measured in m²

2 of 86 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.

First listed on 1977-02-04, in Appendix I, 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
1981-06-06	I	All stocks.	earliest current entry
1981-06-06	I	Reservation not applicable to stocks in (A) North Pacific and (B) area 0° longitude to 70°E longitude, from the equator to the Antarctic continent.	amendment
2000-04-02	I	none	amendment

Convention on Migratory Species

Listed under CMS: Appendix I, Appendix II. Also covered by ACCOBAMS, Pacific Islands Cetaceans, which are separate instruments with their own annexes.

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 V comes from a pre-2001 Red List system and is not on the modern ordinal scale. 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	EN	Endangered	Global	current for this scope
2008	EN	Endangered	Global
2007	EN	Endangered	Global
1996	EN	Endangered	Global
1994	V	Vulnerable (pre-1994 criteria)	Global

Reported catch derived

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

No NAMMCO catch records for this species. NAMMCO reports on a subset of marine mammals, so an absence here is expected for most species and does not mean no catch occurred.

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: skin pieces	cites_trade	checked against `cites_trade_records`
2019-06-15	CITES Trade: wax	cites_trade	checked against `cites_trade_records`
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
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
2001-06-15	CITES Trade: specimens	cites_trade	checked against `cites_trade_records`
2000-04-02	Listed in CITES Appendix I	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`
1981-06-06	Listed in CITES Appendix I	cites_listing	checked against `cites_listings`
1981-06-06	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.