Funny you should say that...I used to work at a major aquarium which hosted a Right Whale research department. The sad fact of the matter is that these poor creatures are dumb as stumps. The main causes of their near extinction are 1) entanglement in fishing lines and 2) ship collisions. They simply don't know enough to swim away from the danger. There is no instinct to move away from a threat. It's tragic but at the same time you have to throw up your hands and say "What can you do? Darwin is proving his point here."
Are Right Whales just an especially stupid whale subset? I thought whales are generally thought to be intelligent.