The 2010 Academy Award-winning movie The Cove — which documented dolphin slaughter in Japan — included scenes of OSU researcher Scott Baker conducting DNA analysis covertly in his hotel room.
Tag: Scott Baker
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On the Beach
The mothers of beached whale calves often were missing entirely from the beach, a study found.
“There was just a low fence around the tank, and you could literally reach over and throw the ring,” recalls Albertson, a Ph.D. student in Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute. “She kept coming back to me. It was a neat connection. It really made an impact on me.”
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Dolphin Defender
A dolphin’s dorsal fin can be as distinctive as a human fingerprint. As the fin slices through the sea, its unique pattern of pigments, nicks and scars relays the animal’s personal story to observers on the surface. Often, scientists can use these markings to ID individual dolphins. But for some species, fin IDs are not precise enough. That’s why researchers like Oregon State University Ph.D. student Rebecca Hamner have turned to DNA.
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Gene Stalker
Scott Baker, an Oregon State University conservation geneticist and cetacean specialist whose work was featured in the Academy Award-winning documentary, “The Cove,” has been named one of four 2011 Pew Fellows in Marine Conservation.
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Secret Slaughter
In the seaside village of Taiji, Japan, there’s a jarring juxtaposition: Jolly-looking tour buses shaped like happy dolphins putter up and down the streets by day, while by night fishermen secretly slaughter hundreds of panic-stricken dolphins in a nearby inlet and sell them as meat.