Several states had adopted whales as official marine mammals, including two New England states, Massachusetts and Connecticut. In 1987, Allied Whale, a group based at Maines's College of the Atlantic, took on a whale of a project. Everyone knows that the blue whale is the largest living animal. The finback is related to the blue whale and is the second longest whale. However, right whales and sperm whales may weigh more than the more slender finback.
Finback whales are generally pelagic , living in the open sea.
However, they are very common along the Maine coast. In fact they are typically the first whales whale watchers see. Finbacks are considered an endangered species, and very little is known about their natural history and biology. Allied Whale is home of the North Atlantic Finback Whale Catalogue . It is basically a collection of photographs of finback whales from North America and Europe.