Sources and Rates of Errors in Methods of Individual Identification for North Atlantic Right Whales

Many long-term studies of wildlife populations rely on individual identification based on natural markings or genetic profiling, or both. However, only rarely are these 2 independent data sets systematically compared with each other to estimate the error rates inherent in these studies. Here, >25 years of photo-identification data on the endangered North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) were compared with high-resolution genetic …