Figuring out what people can do to help beluga whales recover from a population crash near Anchorage will depend on unlocking more of their family secrets: where they go, what they eat, who they live with and how many gray babies they drop each spring into Cook Inlet's silty waters.
Proposals for new research highlight a draft conservation plan released Wednesday by the National Marine Fisheries Service, much of it focused on answering basic biological questions about the depleted whales as they forage for salmon and dodge icebergs in the water off Anchorage's coast.
The draft plan states that oil and gas development should continue to be restricted from the most important beluga habitat near certain river mouths, and calls for monitoring underwater noise caused by construction projects and boating in Knik Arm and other areas of the upper Inlet.
Scientists will also review, by 2006, whether the whales ought to be reconsidered for protection under the federal Endangered Species Act.
The 160-page plan, online for public review, was released two months after scientists reported no clear change in beluga whale numbers for the sixth year in a row.
Based on counts made from an airplane last June, the population of belugas in Cook Inlet could range from 248 to 540, with the official abundance estimate set at 366, said federal biologist Rod Hobbs, with the National Marine Mammal Laboratory in Seattle.
That's pretty much identical to estimates released in 1998, 1999, 2001 and 2003.
"There could be a slow increase going on or there could be a slow decline going on, and it wouldn't be detectable with the precision that we've been able to achieve with that survey," Hobbs said Thursday.
"It's going to take time," he said. "Cetacean populations grow slowly even when they're doing well."
Beluga management biologist Barbara Mahoney, with the fisheries agency in Anchorage, said she had hoped to see the counts rising by now. Unofficial reports from fishermen, pilots and Native hunters suggest there might be more gray calves, always difficult to see in the Inlet's roiling water.
"So maybe there's been a lot of babies in the last couple years, and they'll become visible soon," she said. "They don't turn white until they're 5 to 7 years old."
Some of the research proposed by the plan would attack that question by conducting monthly surveys for calves in the upper Inlet areas, plus doing genetic analysis of skin to track down beluga family groups.
Overall, beluga whales are thriving in Alaska, with at least 35,000 to 40,000 animals in four Arctic stocks. In contrast, the genetically isolated belugas of Cook Inlet were only about 1,300 in the 1980s, and then dropped to about 350 in the late 1990s. Federal biologists have argued that overhunting by some groups of Alaska Natives caused the crash.
But conservation groups and Native activists have countered that shipping, discharges from oil and gas platforms, runoff from roads and airports, pollution, noise, boating and fishing should be examined as reasons for the decline or threats to the whales' recovery. Several groups have unsuccessfully sued for additional federal and state protection.
The whales were listed as depleted under the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 2000, and a co-management agreement with the Cook Inlet Marine Mammal Council limits hunts to one or two whales per season. Final harvest regulations are being worked out in a federal process.
The new draft conservation plan, required by the marine mammal act, outlines what the agency should do to help the local whales recover to about 780 animals.
"The recovery of the (Cook Inlet) beluga whale will require decades," the plan states. "During the early phase of recovery, this stock will exist at a precarious level of abundance from which further declines may not be recoverable."
The document includes detailed explanations of beluga biology, management and hunting history, lists of known mortalities, plus discussions of 13 natural and human factors that could influence the whales' fate, including strandings and killer whale predation, pollution and noise by people.
The plan "builds on a decade of applied research by NOAA Fisheries describing the biology, genetics, and habitat of these whales, as well as factors which have led to their decline," said Alaska region administrator James Balsiger, in a written statement. "We offer several recommendations intended to reduce on-going impacts, improve existing knowledge, and recover the stock."
The plan goes on to outline several dozen research projects and management strategies the agency should take. The projects range from continuing the annual population estimate to a new study that would calculate how long belugas remain underwater.
Conducting all of the research and population counts over the next five years will cost $300,000 to $400,000, Hobbs said. People can comment on the plan through May 16, with a final version due in the fall.
Daily News reporter Doug O'Harra can be reached at do'harra@adn.com.
Beluga: draft conservation plan (in PDF format)