In 2002, the decline in demand, cost the Norwegian government 4 million NOK or 4.5 USD, to destroy 700 tons of blubber lying in freezer storage.
However, blubber also represents an important storage site for micronutrients, holding as much as 66% of the body burden of vitamin A in harbor seals (Mos and Ross 2002).
Blubber is typically viewed as a storage depot associated with lipid reserves, within which lipids, lipid classes, and fatty acid profiles have been characterized in physiologic and energetic studies of marine mammals (Iverson et al. 1997; Mellish et al. 1999).
Most cetaceans have a thick layer of blubber, which acts as their primary storage location for fat.
These include the thickest blubber of any whale, primarily for lipid storage but also for effective thermoregulation, and a unique bow-shaped head that allows creation of breathing holes by breaking thick sea ice from beneath.
In anticipation of the lifting of the ban, the Lofoten whalers have accumulated a blubber mountain of some 350 tonnes, held in deep cold storage.
Blubber samples frozen in liquid nitrogen were subsequently transferred to −80°C storage in the laboratory, and biopsy samples in RNAlater were stored at −20°C.
The blubber and the fins, the most valuable parts, will go into cold storage for eventual export.
Some odontocetes continually deposit iso5:0 in blubber after levels in melon have reached asymptotic levels, suggesting independent control of iso5:0 synthesis and storage in these compartments.
It has been proposed that this displacement is related to the high vitamin A accumulation (natural storage) in Ito cell cytoplasmic lipid droplets and hepatocytes, accumulated through the extensive feeding on blubber from ringed seal and bearded seal (Käkelä et al. 1997; Ramsay and Stirling 1988).
