Japan and Korea are among the few countries that permit commercial sale of whale meat. Korea allows sale of meat from so-called "bycatch"--whales accidentally caught in fishing nets, while Japan allows meat from bycatch and whales killed under a "scientific" whaling program that critics say is commercial whaling in disguise. Since a minke whale may be worth $100,000 when carved up into meat, many critics suspect much of the bycatch may not be accidental.
Baker doesn't chase down whaling ships; he simply waits for the market to bring evidence to shore. Colleagues posing as consumers purchase whale meat or buy it over the Internet in Japan and Korea. The researchers cannot internationally transport meat from protected whales, so they set up a mobile DNA lab in local hotel rooms, then input the meat's genetic sequence--a chemical code that is amplified by the lab equipment--into a database of known species to make a match.
Results of Baker's unorthodox field work, reported to the International Whaling Commission, suggest that a shadowy world of unreported whaling may be cutting much deeper into the world's already imperiled populations than anyone realizes. Baker's team found whale meat for sale in Japan that came from far more fin whales than the nation reported killing. It also found meat from humpback, sei, Bryde's and minke whales on the open market. In Korea, the researchers calculated how long the meat from a whale is likely to remain on the market, about six weeks, and estimated that 827 minke whales passed through Korean markets from 1999 to 2003, almost twice the number that Korea reported as bycatch. Populations of minke whales in the Sea of Japan may face extinction from such intense harvesting, Baker says.
Phillip Clapham, a whale expert with the National Marine Fisheries Service and a U.S. delegate to the International Whaling Commission's scientific committee, says he isn't surprised by the extent of the unreported whale killing. But Baker hopes that his sleuthing will help make a difference. "Who's surveying the local sashimi bar?" he asks. "The answer is basically, 'No one.' Our efforts to monitor what we eat and what we trade has really fallen behind the technology."
4 More Genetic Eco-Espionage Finds
When investigators seized 532 ivory elephant tusks and 42,120 cylinders cut from tusks in Singapore, it wasn't clear where they came from. Scientists at the University of Washington extracted DNA from the tusks and used it to determine that they likely came from between 3,000 to 6,500 savanna elephants living in a band of southern Africa centered around Zambia. The government there reacted by replacing its director of wildlife and issuing tougher sentences for ivory traffickers.
When scientists examined a 12-pound salmon that won a competition in southeast Finland, they discovered that its genes did not match the land-locked population where the fishing competition was held. They found that it was 600 times more likely to have come from the Baltic or Norwegian seas. Faced with the evidence, the offending fisherman admitted buying the fish at a local store.
Scientists have discovered several new species of wildlife by prospecting in the traditional markets of Southeast Asia and other parts of the world. These have included a new species of striped rabbit found for sale in Laos and a rodent unusual enough to justify its own family in the animal kingdom. DNA research can reveal whether such discoveries are real. For example, studies of some supposedly new species of turtles discovered in China suggest they are actually hybrids of known species that have been bred in captivity.
University of Hawaii researchers used DNA to determine what species of shark fins are sold in Hong Kong. By combining that data with records from shark fin trading houses, the researchers determined that the volume of shark fins represented in the trade is three to four times higher than reported catches.