Commercial whaling has been banned since the moratorium of the International Whaling Commission in 1986. However, domestic sale of cetaceans that are caught as bycatch is still allowed in South Korea. Although whale meat is not very popular in South Korea, it is consumed in certain areas. To identify the species composition of whale meat in South Korean markets, we collected 54 samples that were sold as minke whale meat at restaurants and markets of four cities: Seoul, Ulsan, Busan, and Pohang. Of the 54 whale meat samples, 51 were successfully identified using the partial mitochondrial cytochrome b gene (806-1,140 bp) amplified for species identification. Molecular species identification revealed three species among the samples: minke whale (52%), common dolphin (22%), and narrow-ridged finless porpoise (26%). We also gathered data for cetacean bycatch in South Korea. In total, 19 species were confirmed to be incidentally caught in South Korea over the past 13 years, and minke whale (13%), common dolphin (30%), and narrowridged finless porpoise (45%) were recorded as the most frequently caught species. The sale of "fake" minke meat in the markets may