Tagging a beluga whale near Anchorage
Tagging a beluga in Cook Inlet near Anchorage
Credit: NMML

People now have until Aug. 3 to comment on whether a dwindling population of beluga whales in Cook Inlet should be listed as endangered under federal law.

The proposal to list this genetically isolated under the Endangered Species Act had been open for comments until June 19, but the National Marine Fisheries Service extended the deadline in a notice published in Federal Register.

  • Public comments due Aug. 3
  • Email: CIB-ESA-Endangered@noaa.gov
  • w/subject “Cook Inlet Beluga Whale PR”
  • Full details & contacts in the proposal

The agency also announced it would hold at least two public hearings, one in Anchorage and one in Homer. Dates will be published later.


This genetically isolated population has been declining about 4 percent each year and numbers about 300 — a 70 percent decline since the 1970s. The animals never mingle with other Alaska beluga stocks and could disappear within a century if conditions don’t change.

Though overhunting in the early 1990s helped trigger the crisis, no one knows why the whales continue to slip.

The issue over whether the whales now deserve the most stringent level of federal protection will almost certainly divide Anchorage and upper Inlet residents in a ferocious test of values.

Should people spend extra money and possibly disrupt or cancel local projects to help give the whales a better chance to survive? Or is this beluga population — isolated from other belugas in Alaska for at least 10,000 years — simply not important enough by itself to interrupt local activity? Perhaps nothing can help these whales?

A listing would require federal managers to mount a biological investigation, identify and then protect critical habitat, plus scrutinize human activities to make sure they don’t hamper the recovery of the whales.

Beluga whales off Anchorage
Belugas swimming off Anchorage
Credit: NMML

It might delay or increase the cost of the proposed bridge across Knik Arm. It might raise troubling or expensive questions about the handling of drilling waste from oil platforms, the dumping of treated sewage from Anchorage, the increases in shipping, noise, development and commercial fishing.

As of last week, almost 28,000 people had sent emails urging NOAA Fisheries to list the whales under the ESA, and another 100 people and groups submitted detailed personal comments, according to NOAA Fishieries spokeswoman Sheela McLean.