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Fish & Game leading beluga research NOAA funded projects will try to determine why the Cook Inlet whale population is not recovery as expected following ESA listing Alan Bailey Petroleum News
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is leading two new research projects designed to help figure out why the Cook Inlet beluga whale population is not recovering, despite efforts to conserve the sub-species. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is funding the research through its Endangered Species Act Section 6 program - in 2008 the whales were listed as endangered under the terms of the Endangered Species Act. Two aquariums are providing matching funding. A number of organizations, including universities, government agencies and an environmental company will participate in the research, which is expected to take about three years to complete.
After a near 50 percent decline in the whale population in the 1990s, thought to result from unmanaged subsistence hunting, a moratorium on the subsistence harvesting of the whales was established in 1999. And the listing of the whales as endangered has resulted in protective measures for the animals. Nevertheless, the whale population has not recovered as anticipated. The reasons for the continuing population shortfall remain an enigma.
Lifestyle To shed some new light on the whales’ lifestyle, and hence help determine what is constraining the whale population, one of the new projects will use existing datasets to gain a better understanding of the whales’ social structure and mating strategy. The research will use genetic information gleaned from skin biopsies of Bristol Bay belugas.
“These biopsies were collected to genetically identify individuals and estimate the size of the Bristol Bay beluga population,” said research biologist Lori Quakenbush. “We also collected information on whales biopsied within the same group to learn about the social structures of belugas as a species, which we need to better understand why the number of belugas in Cook Inlet is not increasing.”
Foraging activity The second project will use field and laboratory techniques to study the whales’ foraging activities and habitat. Fish and Game will use isotope analysis of annual growth layers in the teeth of stranded belugas as a record of the lifelong general diets of individual whales. This data will enable the assessment of changes in diet and foraging areas, and of growth and body condition, over the last 50 years. In addition, passive acoustic monitoring of areas where belugas forage will enable an assessment of whether human-induced noise is interfering with the whales’ ability to find and capture prey.
“Understanding the foraging ecology and habitat use of the Cook Inlet beluga is important in determining whether changes in prey availability were a contributing factor in their decline and are currently impeding recovery,” said wildlife physiologist Mandy Keogh.
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