9 December 2025: The report of the Scientific Committee Working Group on Genetics is now available!

NAMMCO has published the report of the Scientific Committee Working Group on Genetics, which met on 28 of October 2025. Chaired by Morten Tange Olsen (Globe Institute), the meeting aimed to review new information on the long-finned pilot whale’s genetic structure in the North Atlantic and compare it with existing literature on the subject.

The participants discussed early results of the DolphinUnit project, a comprehensive genomic study spanning the entire North Atlantic. The analyses showed no evidence of population structure of long-finned pilot whales within the North Atlantic, although animals from the Mediterranean Sea are differentiated. The conclusions drawn from this meeting helped inform the stock assessment that was conducted by the Pilot Whale Working Group in November this year.

The full report can be accessed on the NAMMCO website report library.

Photo credit: Tim Cole