largest-ever whale study in Bermuda and possibly the world.

Last week general manager of Esso Bermuda Mr. W. Keith Hollis handed over $50,000 to the Bermuda Biological Station for Research -- the second such donation in two years that will see the three-year project through to completion.

Part of an international effort to study the endangered North Atlantic humpback whales, the Bio Station plays a key role in monitoring the mammals as they migrate from their Caribbean breeding grounds.

Ideally located halfway between the Caribbean and the Gulf of Maine and surrounded by clear water, Bermuda has attracted leading marine biologists in the field.

Since 1992 top US scientists, Dr. Steven Katona president of the College of the Atlantic in Maine and Dr. Gregory Stone, associate director of the New England Aquarium in Boston have studied the humpbacks from the Bio Station.

Dr. Katona is one of 12 scientists co-ordinating a comprehensive international study of North Atlantic humpbacks known as the Years of the North Atlantic Humpback.

Their aim, together with marine scientists from Canada, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Norway, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic is to gather information on the endangered species -- estimated at 6,000, that regularly pass within sight of Bermuda this time of year.

The project should provide comprehensive information on the whales' exact numbers, where they feed, the ratio of males to females and their migratory routes -- at present thought to be via the Gulf of Maine to the Denmark Strait, Greenland and Norwegian seas.

"This project was one of a number that the Bermuda Biological Station submitted to us. This one just caught our fancy,'' Mr. Hollis said. The money will go toward photographing and identifying the whales, taking tissue samples for DNA analysis and tracking them with electronic tags.

These "radio tags'' cost $2,000 apiece and record time, pressure and temperature. The information is released each time the whale surfaces.