The North Pacific right whale (Eubalaena japonica) is a very large, robust baleen whale species that is now extremely rare and endangered. The Northeast Pacific subpopulation, which summers in the southeastern Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska, may have no more than 40 animals. A western subpopulation that summers in the Sea of Okhotsk between the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin Island appears to number in the low hundreds of animals. Prior to commercial whaling in the North Pacific (i.e. pre-1835) the populations in the North Pacific probably were over 20,000 animals. The taking of right whales in commercial whaling has been prohibited by one or more international treaties since 1935. Between 1962 and 1968, illegal Soviet whaling killed at least 529 right whales in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska as well as at least 132 right whales in the Sea Okhotsk. plus an additional 104 North Pacific right whales from unspecified areas.