Endangered Species Listing For Cook Inlet Belugas

Posted by Dawn M. Smith Oct 20, 2008

The listing of the Cook Inlet beluga (Delphinapterus leucas) as endangered is an important victory for conservation organizations in their uphill battle to ensure that the US government follows its own rules in protecting endangered species.

It was originally thought that reducing the subsistence hunt for the Cook Inlet belugas, one of five populations of white whale found in Alaskan waters, would allow for the population to recover from the fifty percent decline it had suffered between 1994 and 1998. This was not the case as the belugas faced many other threats.

Development, especially gas and oil exploration, is one of those threats. With oil leases being proposed for parts of Cook Inlet, listing this Alaskan beluga population as endangered may help protect the health of many other species found in the same environment.

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the federal organization charged with conserving marine mammals, has divided Cook Inlet into three regions to reflect the beluga’s patterns of habitat use.

No doubt this will result in some restriction of how and where the oil and gas leases will be distributed however there have been some habitat use changes as the numbers of belugas in this part of Alaska declined.

The upper portions of Cook Inlet are heavily used by belugas from spring through fall with some important nursery areas for mothers and calves found here. Mid and lower bay areas are use more in late fall and winter. In the early 1990s the belugas used the mid and lower parts of Cook Inlet more extensively.

This suggests that protecting the whole of Cook Inlet may be required if beluga population is going to recover. It remains to be seen whether NMFS will take strong enough action for this to happen.