Tagging a beluga in Cook Inlet near Anchorage
Credit: NMML
Should the genetically isolated beluga whales of Cook Inlet be protected under the Endangered Species Act? Can we afford the extra costs? Can we afford to let them die out?
People can answer these questions in person at two new public hearings scheduled on July 20 in Anchorage and July 19 in Homer by the National Marine Fisheries Service.
- Beluga Comments
- Official Notice from NOAA
- July 19 in Homer
- 3 to 6 p.m. at Maritime Refuge, Island and Oceans
- July 20 in Anchorage
- 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. at Loussac Public Library
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.
- Public comments due Aug. 3
- Email: CIB-ESA-Endangered@noaa.gov
- w/subject “Cook Inlet Beluga Whale PR”
- Full details & contacts in the proposal
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.
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 late May, 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.