DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN DIFFERENT POPULATIONS OF HARP SEAL (PHOCA-GROENLANDICA) BY CHEMOMETRY OF THE FATTY-ACID PROFILES IN THE JAW BONE

The relative amounts of various fatty acids of jawbone and eye lens we re determined in harp seals (Phoca groenlandica) caught in the Greenla nd Sea and in the Barents Sea. The two tissues had distinctly differen t profiles. The fatty acid profile in the lens tissue changed with age . Principal component analysis of the data showed that the profiles in the jawbone were different in seals from the two populations, while t he difference was much less prominent in the case of the eye lens. Usi ng the jawbone profiles from the western and eastern seals as referenc e, it was shown that seven seals, caught in west coast seine nets duri ng the large invasion of harp seals along the Norwegian coast in the w inter of 1986-87, had come from the eastern population.