Advances in DNA technology and understanding of molecular biology may help fill an important knowledge gap about the critically endangered and declining Cook Inlet beluga population. Dr. Ellie Bors and a team of researchers began working to find out how to use epigenetics to date Cook Inlet belugas in 2018, while she was a post-doctoral scholar at the OSU Marine Mammal Institute in Dr. Scott Baker's Cetacean Conservation and Genomics Laboratory.