Above a speed of about 10 knots, a right whale's encounter with a large ship would probably be fatal.

CNN: Plan to save whales strangling in red tape

The right whale has a long and troubled history of interactions with people.

CNN: Endangered right whales appear to be on the rebound

The relatively diminutive pygmy right whale, which grows to just 21 feet long, lives out in the open ocean.

MSN: Found: Whale thought extinct for 2 million years

The species' name comes from the fact that it was considered the "right whale" to kill during the whaling era.

CNN: Endangered right whales appear to be on the rebound

Rapacious and uncontrolled commercial whaling (most notably by Britain and America in the 18th and 19th centuries) did indeed drive many species, such as the right whale and the sperm whale, close to extinction.

ECONOMIST: Obduracy in the face of hypocrisy

Europe is home to a rich diversity of native mammal species ranging from the small such as shrews and voles, to the large such as wolves and brown bears. to the enormous -- in the case of the 70-ton North Atlantic Right Whale.

CNN: All creatures great, small and disappearing