Baleen this issue. A whale's baleen plates play the most important role in its filter-feeding process. To feed, a baleen whale opens its mouth widely and scoops in dense shoals of prey (such as krill, copepods, small fish, and sometimes birds that happen to be near the shoals), together with large volumes of water. It then partly shuts its mouth and presses its tongue against its upper jaw, forcing the water to pass out sideways through the baleen, thus sieving out the prey, which it then swallows. People formerly used baleen (usually referred to as "whalebone") for making numerous items where
Baleen whale animals from boats out at sea. People from Norway started hunting whales around 4,000 years ago, and people from Japan began hunting whales in the Pacific at least as early as that. Whales are typically hunted for their meat and blubber by aboriginal groups; they used baleen for baskets or roofing, and made tools and masks out of bones. The Inuit hunted whales in the Arctic Ocean. The Basques started whaling as early as the 11th century, sailing as far as Newfoundland in the 16th century in search of right whales. 18th and 19th century whalers hunted down whales mainly