Studying 'whale snot' to help protect Arctic marine mammals
Thursday, January 3, 2013 - 06:50
in Biology & Nature
Justin Richard spent nearly 10 years as a beluga whale trainer at Mystic Aquarium, where he taught the Arctic marine mammals to voluntarily submit to regular health screenings. But it's not so easy to conduct health screenings of wild whales. So he has taken what he learned at Mystic to the University of Rhode Island in an effort to find non-invasive ways of monitoring the health of wild beluga populations.