Scientists Track Blue Whale’s Life, Death Using Genetic Monitoring

Using DNA analysis, American scientists have traced the life of a protected blue whale from its birth in the North Atlantic in 1965 to its sale as raw meat in a Japanese store nearly 30 years later. Apart from the feat of tracking the life of one of nature’s most intriguing creatures, the study in today’s Nature showed that the whale had been sold for profit at a time when a global moratorium should have prevented it from being killed except for scientific purposes.

Frank Cipriano and Stephen Palumbi of Harvard University believe their results are proof that a comprehensive genetic monitoring program would help to control whaling, and particularly the commercial sale of whales killed under scientific permits. The whale was conceived in the North Atlantic in 1964 and born the following year. By the time he was 24 years old he was 70 feet 6 inches long and sterile. He was harpooned on June 29, 1989 near Hvalfjordur, Iceland, under a scientific whaling permit issued by Iceland.

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Compiled by Times medical writer Thomas H. Maugh II