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  • WHERE I WORK

I fire darts at whales to help track their movements

Yakamoz Kizildas collects the DNA of humpback whales to learn about their behaviour in the North Atlantic ocean.
By
  1. Esme Hedley

    1. Esme Hedley is a careers and supplements team intern for Nature in London.

Yakamoz Kizildas points a biopsy gun for whales from the deck of a ship.

Yakamoz Kizildas is a marine biologist and master’s student at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Credit: Gaia Squarci for Nature

“Here, I’m standing on a research boat moored in Húsavík harbour in Iceland’s Skjálfandi Bay, showing how I use a modified rifle to extract tissue samples from humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) while out at sea. From April to November, humpback whales feed here on krill and fish such as capelin (Mallotus villosus) after journeying some 8,000 kilometres from their breeding grounds in the Caribbean and around Cape Verde. This picture was taken on a cold day in May, when a freak storm prevented us from leaving the bay.

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Nature 633, 732 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-02999-x

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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