PALMER - More study is needed before Cook Inlet beluga whales are added to the nation’s list of endangered species, Matanuska-Susitna Borough leaders say.
The borough Assembly unanimously agreed Aug. 7 to ask the National Marine Fisheries Service to wait at least one more season before considering whether the Cook Inlet belugas merit Endangered Species Act protections.
Their request joins similar pleas made by the state of Alaska, Alaska Resource Development Council, Municipality of Anchorage and Kenai Peninsula Borough in response to an effort by the fisheries service to take extra steps to protect the small population of cetaceans.
“The feeling was, let’s get a little more information before a decision is made on whether or not they should be listed,” said borough economic development director David Hanson.
Hanson crafted the Assembly resolution. In it, he cited recent studies that indicate the beluga whale population in Cook Inlet might be on the rise. The studies, aerial stock assessments from the fisheries service, reflect a January 2006 count of 302 whales in Cook Inlet, compared to a January 2004 count of 278.
Cook Inlet beluga whales are white with short beaks and typically eat salmon, herring, capelin, shrimp, Arctic cod, flounder and crab. The whales are seen as genetically different from other beluga populations in Alaska. As many as 1,300 whales once roamed Cook Inlet, according to the service. The population dropped by 47 percent between 1994 and 1998, according to National Marine Fisheries data. The whales in May 2000 were listed as “depleted” under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and subsistence harvests are now restricted in Cook Inlet.
According to the fisheries service, whale population surveys between 1999 and 2003 varied from between 313 to 435 whales “with no clear trend.”
DISPUTING THE COUNT
Critics of the plan to list the Cook Inlet belugas say the fisheries service hasn’t done enough in the six years since the whales were listed as depleted. A conservation plan aimed at improving beluga habitat isn’t finished, and the fisheries service hasn’t added more scientific studies to get a more accurate whale count.
Jason Brune, executive director of the Alaska Resource Development Council, said a study performed by LGL Alaska Research Associates identified as many as 330 individual whales in upper Cook Inlet.
“The one aerial survey ... shows a static population. And that’s what they’re basing their survey on,” Brune said.
Kaja Brix, director of protected resources at the National Marine Fisheries Service office in Juneau, said the rising whale count must have come from raw data, before counts were corrected to include the number of whales not spotted but presumed to exist in Cook Inlet. The population has been declining steadily by about 4 percent each year since 1999, she said.
Brix called the LGL study preliminary and said that as a one-time sweep for information it was less reliable than the fisheries’ own yearly, methodical aerial counts.
She said her office plans to release the conservation plan sometime in the near future.
But the conservation plan lacks the weight of law, what the fisheries service seeks in an Endangered Species Act listing, she said.
Brix said the Endangered Species Act comes into play only on projects that receive federal funding. It’s not likely an endangered listing would stop any projects, she said.
Brune said an endangered listing would mean companies working in Cook Inlet would likely face project delays and added costs for more studies to analyze beluga impacts. And it would open a new legal angle for people bent on stopping a project, he said.
“Because of those additional burdens that are put on companies contemplating investment, it might drive them to go elsewhere, rather than dipping their toes into Cook Inlet,” Brune said.
BOROUGH COOPERATION
So far, the borough has few problems working in Cook Inlet, borough port director Marc Van Dongen said Monday.
Van Dongen said he isn’t sure he agrees with the National Marine Fisheries Service desire to list the beluga as endangered. But he believes the borough can work within the parameters of such a listing.
Last year, Van Dongen proposed 10 measures to limit effects on Cook Inlet beluga from pile driving related to construction of ferry landings at Port MacKenzie and Anchorage. The borough has a permit to build a ferry landing at the port but is still working on getting one for the Anchorage side, he said.
The proposed mitigation measures include hiring a third-party whale spotter who would stop in-water impact hammers if belugas got too close and suggested studying how far noise from pile driving travels underwater to ensure the beluga aren’t exposed to high decibel levels.
The fisheries service accepted his suggestions as sufficient, he said.
“There’s no reason ... communities that border Cook Inlet can’t develop reasonable mitigation measures. There’s no reason we can’t work together to mitigate any potential damage to the belugas,” Van Dongen said.
“It makes it tougher to get your project done ... and it’s going to cost a little more to do studies and to hire watchers for whales ... but I don’t see them saying 'no more shipping in Cook Inlet.’ ”
