DNA 바코드를 이용한 시장에 유통하는 고래 고기의 종판별

Abstract

Catching Balaenoptera acutorostrata (mink whale) was outlawed by the International Whaling Commission in 1986 and trade in its products is forbidden by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). The species, however, is sometimes caught as bycatch by the fishermen and sold in the market at high price. On the other hand, circulation of the whale meat in the market seems to be in excess of the amount of bycatch and the consumers might have been deceived of the species and paid more than the reasonable price since the whale meat itself is no longer distinguishable in terms of the species based on morphological characters. In order to examine whether the whale meat products were labelled correctly for its species name, we analyzed DNA barcode, the mtDNA COI sequence of the meat product in the market asserted as mink whale. A total of 24 whale meat samples were obtained from the restaurant in November, 2009 and three specimens from each sample were used for analysis. Six out of 24 samples turned out to be wrongly labelled in term of the species, which included short-beaked common dolphin, Delphinus delphis, Phocoena sp.(Porpoise), Grampus stenella(Rissos Dolphine).