Whole blood was collected as part of annual health assessments of beluga whales from the healthy Bristol Bay, Alaska stock during 2012-2014. Gene expression from 24 animals (8 from each year) was analyzed to establish baseline information on the content and variation of the beluga whale blood transcriptome. Overall design: Illumina based RNA-seq analyses were carried out on RNA from blood using a transcriptome assembled de novo in Trinity. The data set was interrogated for transcripts exhibiting variablity between sexes or years.