New England Aquarium

The New England Aquarium will perform a cross-referencing of two different though closely related archival collections. The underlying data of the North Atlantic Right Whale Catalog, an archive of photographs and metadata of photographically-identified North Atlantic whales, and the North Atlantic Right Whale DNA Database, an archive of DNA and genotypes, will be queried and compared against one another. Discrepancies will be tracked, and necessary edits will be made to individual databases. As an outcome of this project, new images and sightings will be automatically available to the general public through the North Atlantic Right Whale Catalog's public website that is linked to the aquarium's website. Additionally, scientists, state and federal government officials, fishing and shipping industry leaders, conservationists, educators, and others will have access to improved information that will strengthen the science on whale demographics, mortality, and family lineages. By improving the quality of its archives, the aquarium will strengthen the science and conservation efforts that rely on them.