Estimating humpback whale ages, November 2023

During November/December 2023, BAS PhD student Henry Slesser visited the laboratory of project collaborator Dr Emma Carroll, to learn how to estimate the ages of the humpback whales that have been biopsy sampled at South Georgia since 2017. This cutting edge molecular approach is called “epigenetics“. The laboratory technique is still being optimised for humpback whales and we eagerly await the results of their work early in 2025.