All species / Monodon monoceros

Monodon monoceros

Narwhal · Linnaeus, 1758

Red List, global: LC; Least Concern, 2017
First CITES listing: III; Appendix III, 1975, by Canada
CITES trade records: 18,535; 1975–2023 · exporter-reported
Unit dimensions: 4; reported separately, never summed
NAMMCO catch entries: 133; catch records
Seizure records: 10; reported taxon matches

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

In summary derived

Monodon monoceros, Narwhal, is placed in family Monodontidae, order Cetacea, class Mammalia. It was first listed in Appendix III in 1975, by Canada. The earliest CITES listing row the corpus holds for it is Appendix II, dated 1979, a later entry than the 1975 listing. The corpus records 1 dated listing row in total.

Its latest global Red List assessment is Least Concern, published 2017. It carries 3 earlier global assessments on the current scale and 3 on scales that were superseded before the current categories and cannot be compared with them. An assessment at Europe scope records Vulnerable. This site reports the global category; the two are not interchangeable.

The corpus holds 18,535 exporter-reported CITES trade records for it, from 1975 to 2023, reported across 4 unit dimensions. The most frequently recorded term is tusks: 8,539 records across 2 unit dimensions, of which 8,535 are measured in specimens. NAMMCO records 133 catch entries, from 1992 to 2023, totalling 15,197 animals reported by NAMMCO member countries, counting each year's area reports, or its national total where the year reports no area. 5 of those entries report no number and are not in that total. Attribution is by the taxon name each report gave. 10 seizure records are attributed to it, being those whose reported taxon matches the species.

Composed from 20 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.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: Monodontidae
First CITES listing: 1975
Global Red List status: LCLeast Concern, assessed 2017
Regional status (Europe): VURegional, 2023. Not the species status.

Content withheld pending expert review

8 narrative sections and 4 references 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: 15,640 records, 84%
packaging in containers: 2,777 records, 15%
mass in kg: 117 records, <1%
volume in L: 1 record, <1%

Records per dimension. Not additive across units.

Trade over time

Peak 2,094 records in 2005. Trade records per year, exporter-reported, every term and unit counted as records, not quantities.

Peak 619 specimens in 1990. Quantity of tusks, the term with most records (8,535), in specimens, exporter-reported. Other terms are in the tables below, each in its own unit.

count measured in specimens

15,640 of 18,535 records carry a quantity in specimens. CITES leaves the unit blank to mean a count of the term.

tusks8,535

carvings5,617

teeth939

unspecified162

skulls89

ivory pieces79

bones64

specimens54

Top 8 of 23. 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
tusks	10,380 specimens	8,074	1985–2023	W
carvings	15,655 specimens	5,457	1985–2019	W
teeth	2,719 specimens	897	1985–2023	W
tusks	1,400 specimens	310	1975–1994	not recorded
unspecified	365 specimens	160	2000–2005	W
tusks	167 specimens	125	1991–2023	O
carvings	571 specimens	109	1990–2023	O
skulls	106 specimens	84	1986–2023	W
ivory pieces	150 specimens	76	1986–2011	W
bones	115 specimens	57	1989–2022	W
specimens	3,561 specimens	48	1996–2022	W
carvings	404 specimens	26	1975–1991	not recorded

Showing the 12 term and source combinations with the most records, of 50.

packaging measured in containers

2,777 of 18,535 records carry a quantity in containers.

carvings2,767

bones7

ivory pieces1

oil1

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	3,559 containers	2,767	1986–2005	W
bones	7 containers	7	2005	W
ivory pieces	1 container	1	1983	not recorded
oil	1 container	1	2002	W
specimens	250 containers	1	2002	W

2 smaller units: kg (117 records), L (1 record)

mass measured in kg

117 of 18,535 records carry a quantity in kg.

meat62

specimens31

carvings8

skins5

tusks4

teeth3

bone pieces2

bodies1

Top 8 of 9. 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	6,079.72 kg	59	1988–2005	W
specimens	1,153.37 kg	31	2000–2023	W
carvings	0.93 kg	8	2010	W
skins	34.6 kg	5	2000–2002	W
tusks	75.92 kg	4	1999–2018	W
meat	42 kg	3	1984–1989	not recorded
teeth	1.57 kg	3	2010–2023	W
bone pieces	1 kg	2	2013	U
bodies	0.7 kg	1	2023	W
bones	12 kg	1	2023	W

volume measured in L

1 of 18,535 records carry a quantity in L.

Term	Quantity	Records	Years	Source
specimens	0.04 L	1	2010	W

CITES listings curated

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

First listed on 1975-11-16, in Appendix III by Canada, 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
1979-06-28	II	Listed under Appendix II as part of the Monodontidae family. All parts and derivatives except those covered by Annotation 1.	earliest current entry

Convention on Migratory Species

Listed under CMS: Appendix II. Also covered by ASCOBANS, 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.

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	VU	Vulnerable	Europe	current for this scope
2023	VU	Vulnerable	Europe	a republished version of the 2023 assessment
2017	LC	Least Concern	Global	current for this scope
2012	NT	Near Threatened	Global
2008	NT	Near Threatened	Global
2007	NA	Not assessed	Europe (scope corrected)
1996	DD	Data Deficient	Global
1994	K	Insufficiently Known (pre-1994; not a risk category)	Global
1990	K	Insufficiently Known (pre-1994; not a risk category)	Global
1988	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	Total	599	654
2023	Zone 1 - Etah	0	10
2023	Zone 2 - Qaanaaq	132	128
2023	Zone 3 - Melville Bugt	173	113
2023	Zone 4 - Uummannaq	132	195
2023	Zone 5 - Disko bugt	121	147
2023	Zone 6 - Tasiilaq	5	21
2023	Zone 7 - Ittoqqortoormiit	11	20
2023	Zone 8 - kangerlussuaq	25	20
2022	Total	526	771
2022	Zone 1 - Etah	0	10
2022	Zone 2 - Qaanaaq	78	107
2022	Zone 3 - Melville Bugt	84	117
2022	Zone 4 - Uummannaq	220	305
2022	Zone 5 - Disko bugt	80	157
2022	Zone 6 - Tasiilaq	4	15
2022	Zone 7 - Ittoqqortoormiit	45	45
2022	Zone 8 - kangerlussuaq	15	15
2021	Total	419	547
2021	Zone 1 - Etah	3	6
2021	Zone 2 - Qaanaaq	91	98
2021	Zone 3 - Melville Bugt	70	70
2021	Zone 4 - Uummannaq	143	154
2021	Zone 5 - Disko bugt	92	173
2021	Zone 6 - Tasiilaq	7	7
2021	Zone 7 - Ittoqqortoormiit	2	29
2021	Zone 8 - kangerlussuaq	11	10
2021	Zone 9 - Northeast Greenland	0	0
2020	Total	281	564
2020	Zone 1 - Etah	2	6
2020	Zone 2 - Qaanaaq	91	93
2020	Zone 3 - Melville Bugt	46	71
2020	Zone 4 - Uummannaq	16	197
2020	Zone 5 - Disko bugt	68	153
2020	Zone 6 - Tasiilaq	22	12
2020	Zone 7 - Ittoqqortoormiit	36	32
2020	Zone 8 - kangerlussuaq	0	0
2020	Zone 9 - Northeast Greenland	0	0
2019	East	78	64
2019	Inglefield Bredning	150	152

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 133 records.

Illegal trade seizures derived

Seizure records whose reported taxon resolves to this species.

What the seizure source records

10 seizure records name this species. Matching is on the taxon the source reported, case aside, and each record below shows the reported name, so a match that is not literal can be seen for what it is. 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.

tooth2

tusk2

bone piece1

carving1

ivory carvings1

ivory piece1

skeleton1

specimen1

Records per product, not a quantity.

Product	Reported as
bone piece	Monodon monoceros
carving	Monodon monoceros
ivory carvings	Monodon monoceros
ivory piece	Monodon monoceros
skeleton	Monodon monoceros
specimen	Monodon monoceros
tooth	Monodon monoceros
tooth	Monodon monoceros
tusk	Monodon monoceros
tusk	monodon monoceros

References withheld

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

No references are shown for this species. Machine-proposed bindings exist and are not shown, because no subject expert has reviewed and signed them. Their count is in the Overview notice above.

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`
2017	IUCN Red List Assessment (2017)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
2012	IUCN Red List Assessment (2012)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
2008	IUCN Red List Assessment (2008)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
2007	IUCN Red List Assessment (2007)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
1996	IUCN Red List Assessment (1996)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
1994	IUCN Red List Assessment (1994)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
1990	IUCN Red List Assessment (1990)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
1988	IUCN Red List Assessment (1988)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
1979-06-28	Listed in CITES Appendix II	cites_listing	checked against `cites_listings`