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Voyage of the Odyssey Chief Scientist, Dr. Celine Godard shows a tissue sample taken from a sperm whale.
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Photo: Iain Kerr |
BENIGN RESEARCH
A hallmark of OA's long-term survey program has been the continual development of benign research techniques now utilized by marine biologists worldwide.
Traditional techniques for assessing populations of whales have relied on whale carcasses provided by the whaling industry. Even though this method continues to be used in some parts of the world, it does not yield much of the information needed for management of stocks, such as critical habitat and social behavior patterns. Observations of individuals are required over several years in order to gather such data.
The Ocean Alliance will continue to develop new research
methodologies. Two important developments are satellite tracking
and DNA fingerprinting.
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