Cook Inlet Beluga Whale

The Cook Inlet beluga whale is a genetically distinct and geographically isolated population whose numbers have plummeted in recent decades. The population has declined to approximately 300 whales from the population’s peak of 1300 whales. For over a decade, Trustees for Alaska has worked closely with our clients and partners, such as Cook Inletkeeper, NRDC and Defenders of Wildlife, to devise legal strategies to protect the Cook Inlet beluga whale population. Our first major success dates back to 2000, when, in response to our 1999 petition, NMFS listed the Cook Inlet beluga whale as depleted under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Claiming that hunting was the key threat to the population and restrictions would allow the population to recover, NMFS instituted restrictions on beluga hunting by Natives. While unregulated harvest is believed to have caused the original decline of the Cook Inlet beluga whale, the population has failed to rebound as expected since hunting was curtailed in 1999, indicating that other factors likely are interfering with the white whale’s recovery. 

 

In 2006, following the repeated requests by the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission to have the species listed under the Endangered Species Act, Trustees for Alaska petitioned NMFS to list the whale under the Endangered Species Act.   In October of 2008, responding to Trustees for Alaska’s petition, NMFS listed the species as endangered under the Act. In November of 2009, NMFS proposed more than 3,000 square miles as critical habitat for the imperiled whale [insert map]. That same month, NMFS recorded a decline in the population from 375 to 321 whales. 

 

The Palin and Parnell Administrations, Municipality of Anchorage and other local municipalities and development interests, and Alaska’s Congressional delegation, all oppose the listing and designation of critical habitat. Cook Inlet is the most populated watershed in Alaska and there is significant offshore oil and gas development in beluga habitat. Because of the beluga’s endangered listing, other development projects in and around Cook Inlet will require heightened attention. Such projects include sewage discharges from the Point Woronzof wastewater treatment plant, the proposed Knik Arm Bridge, the Port of Anchorage expansion, the proposed Chuitna coal strip mine, the port facility and transportation infrastructure for the proposed Pebble mine, polluted storm water runoff and noise. Trustees for Alaska is actively working on these identified development projects that may threaten the whale’s critical habitat and the species itself, all in the hope that by protecting the whale from these threatening projects the species may have a real and meaningful opportunity to recover to a healthy population where it no longer needs the protections afforded by the Endangered Species Act.