Inlet belugas tagged for endangered list

The National Marine Fisheries Service is proposing to list Cook Inlet beluga whales as an endangered species, environmental groups that petitioned for the listing said April 19.

The listing is expected to be published in the Federal Register on April 20. The groups circulated a copy of the proposed rule.

Cook Inlet’s belugas are a genetically distinct population that doesn’t interact with other beluga populations or leave the Inlet, according to agency biologists who have studied them. The Cook Inlet population, which numbered about 1,300 during the 1970s and early 1980s, plummeted during the 1990s to about 350 animals in 1998, according to federal studies.

Federal agencies and tribal organizations restricted subsistence hunting of the whales over the past several years, hoping the belugas would begin to rebound. But recent studies show that has not happened. The most recent estimate of the population — based on observations last summer — is about 300.

The listing sets in motion a 12-month review, during which the NMFS will hold public hearings and identify critical habitat for the belugas. Development groups and local governments along Cook Inlet have argued that restrictions on human activity in the Inlet could cause big problems.

The groups that petitioned for the Endangered Species Act listing say it is vital if the whales are to survive.

—Anchorage Daily News