Ambergris- The Floating Gold

Ambergris- The Floating Gold

Subject – Environment

Context – The Crime Branch of the Pimpri Chinchwad police has arrested two persons in Pune and seized 550 grams of ambergris, also known as ‘floating gold’

Concept –

• It is generally referred to as whale vomit.
• It is a solid waxy substance that floats around the surface of the water body and at times settles on the coast.
• A sperm whale eats several thousand squid beaks a day and a beak makes it way to the whale’s stomach and into its looping convoluted intestines where it becomes ambergris.
• It was called as “preternaturally hardened whale dung” by a German physician Franz Schwediawer in 1783.
• It is produced only by an estimated one per cent of sperm whales.
• It contains alkaloids, acids, and a specific compound called ambreine, which is similar to cholesterol.

Value of Ambergris

• It is referred to as floating gold because 1 kg of ambergris is worth Rs 1 crore in the international market.
• The reason for its high cost is its use in the perfume market, especially to create fragrances like musk.
• It is believed to be in high demand in countries like Dubai that have a large perfume market.
• The ancient Egyptians used it as incense and it is also believed to be used in some traditional medicines.

Laws governing trade of Ambergris

• The sperm whale is a protected species and hunting of the whale is not allowed.
• The buying or selling of ambergris in India is prohibited under the Wildlife Protection Act 1972.

Sperm Whale

• They are the largest of the toothed whales and have one of the widest global distributions of any marine mammal species.
• They are found in all deep oceans, from the equator to the edge of the pack ice in the Arctic and Antarctic.
• They are named after the waxy substance i.e. spermaceti, found in their heads.
• It is listed as ‘Vulnerable’ under the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
• They inhabit all of the world’s oceans.