In recent days a new genetic project has been announced to collect and sequence the DNA of orcas living in the Pacific Northwest to try to save them from extinction, which at this point is a serious risk. The project is a collaboration between NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center, the non-profit organization Nature Conservancy and the BGI genomics company. Skin or other biological samples of more than one hundred specimens that have been collected over more than two decades will be used to obtain DNA.