A North Island whale science organization is working with new technology to identify and track humpback whales around the Island.
The Marine Education and Research Society started work this week with a whale biologist from Ocean Wise to do environmental DNA collection, or eDNA, a technique which can identify creatures that are present in a body of water through water sampling.
In this case, researchers will wait for whales to dive, then collect water from the flukeprint. They have a Marine Mammal Licence from Fisheries and Oceans Canada to do the collection work.
They will compare the results with knowledge learned in the past through traditional biopsy methods.
It builds on similar work published earlier this year by Ocean Wise, done near Prince Rupert.
