The flukes have a distinct notch, are very wide and can equal almost half the body length. Occasionally Bowheads have been seen feeding while swimming on their sides with their mouths open. Distribution of the Bowhead is circumpolar confined to the Arctic, associated with ice. There are five separate populations with the bulk of the world population concentrated in the Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. Another population exists in the Sea of Okhotsk, a third in the Davis Straight and Baffin Bay, a fourth around Hudson Bay and a relict population in Greenland and Barents Seas.
Bowheads migrate relative to the formation and movement of ice, north in summer, south in winter.
Mating and calving occurs in spring and early summer during the early stages of the migration northeast. This migration occurs in three or four pulses, and follows ice leads close to the coast through the Bering Strait into the Chukchi Sea and then past Point Barrow, Alaska, into the Beaufort Sea. The Bowhead Whale has been protected, since 1935, worldwide by international law. It is one of the most seroiusly endangered of all the large whales. It was hunted to near extinction from a population of around 50,000 and although the present number is uncertain it has been estimated at about 7,800.