By Margaret Bauman
Alaska Journal of Commerce

Federal fisheries officials said Oct. 6 that the number of beluga whales in Cook Inlet are still declining as efforts continue to propose designated areas of critical habitat for this species.

By the latest count, there are only 321 beluga whales remaining in Cook Inlet, compared to 375 in 2007 and 2008, and a high of 653 belugas in 1994.

"The short answer is we don't have a clear picture of all the things causing this population not to recover," said Brad Smith, supervisor for protective resources in the Anchorage office of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "Some major threats have been addressed, including a halt in subsistence hunting, but there are other threats still out there."

These concerns include a loss or degradation of habitat, pollution, in-water noise, poaching and harassment, he said.

Smith said that a NOAA biological opinion on the Anchorage port expansion concluded that this would not result in a likelihood of the species becoming extinct.

"If we had concerns that port development would have a negative effect on the growth of the whales, you would have seen a different conclusion," he said.

The multi-million dollar port expansion project includes filling in 135 acres that is beluga whale habitat, an area where the belugas migrate, especially in the fall, said Barbara Mahoney, a biologist with NOAA's Anchorage office.

"Permits for construction at the port (from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) have some mitigations to protect the belugas from harm," Mahoney said.

Those Corps permits are reviewed by NOAA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, state agencies, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the public, she said.

"The permit allows a certain level of noise harassment of a certain number of the whales, but the port will shut down construction operations causing noise if the whales get too close," she said. "Marine mammal observers contracted by the port monitor marine mammal behavior during in-water construction to preclude any levels of harassment that have the potential to injure or kill marine mammals."

Under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, harassment is defined as any act of pursuit, torment or annoyance that has potential to injure a marine mammal or marine mammal stock in the wild or has potential to disturb a marine mammal or marine mammal stock in the wild by causing disruption of behavioral patterns, including changes in migration, breathing, nursing, breeding and feeding or sheltering.

Scientists conducted aerial surveys of the belugas in early June during fish migrations, when belugas concentrate near river mouths. Between June 2 and June 9, they flew over Cook Inlet counting the beluga whales, taking photographs and video, before concluding there were only 321 whales left.

NOAA Fisheries declared the Cook Inlet beluga population depleted in 2000 under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. However, the population did not recover as predicted, and the population was listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act in 2008.

Cook Inlet belugas are one of five beluga populations recognized within U.S. waters. The other populations summer in Bristol Bay, the eastern Bering Sea, eastern Chukchi Sea and the Beaufort Sea.

The Cook Inlet population is considered the most isolated, based on the degree of genetic differentiation and the geographic distance between the Cook Inlet population and the four other beluga populations, which are not listed as endangered or threatened.

"Our job is to advocate for the resource, for Cook Inlet belugas, to conserve and recover the species," Smith said. "Certainly there are times, the Port of Anchorage expansion is one example, when we worked well with developers, to make sure that the work was compatible with recovery of the whales."