Belugas = Big Wild Life

I don't know about you, but for me, being able to see wildlife in a natural setting is an important part of my quality of life. Alaskan wildlife is, for the most part, still so abundant and widely distributed that even living near a big city like Anchorage I can easily see animals that I could not have dreamt of seeing when we lived in Bethesda, MD. As the marketing slogan (http://www.bigwildlife.net/) says so well... Anchorage really does equate with big wild life!

For most residents, and especially at this time of the year when many animals are again active, most folks think of wild land animals like bear, moose and wolves. I have a fascination with them also, but what really grabbed my attention when we moved here from Maryland three years ago were the reports in various tourism pamphlets about the possibility of seeing Cook Inlet belugas around Anchorage. I have always been intrigued by whales of all species, and had been involved in stranded pilot whale recues off Tasmania and in various whale management initiatives on the Great Barrier Reef and in Indonesia. But I had only ever seen live belugas in the Mystic aquarium so was keen to get out and see them 'in the wild'.

As if on cue, the very first time we drove along Turnagain arm, we were fortunate enough to count 26 whales in 3 groups (near the pylons a few miles before Girdwood). Their agility and grace in the water was mesmerizing. I was hooked!

Watching for belugas has now become a compelling (and perhaps even obsessive) part of my drive betwen Anchorage and Seward. I couldn't wait for the ice to melt fast enough this past winter and was rewarded with my first view of a solitary beluga just a week ago - again near Girdwood. I am looking forward to helping out again this summer with the citizen beluga watch program at Ship Creek when my schedule permits.

That background may explain why I have followed the Cook Inlet beluga endangered species listing process with such interest. As a relative newcomer to the complex and politicized process of endangered species listing and management, I am struck by the need for both (a) greater public education and more targeted research to understand not only why Cook Inlet belugas are threatened, (and (b) also what steps we might take to sustain and then ultimately help the population to recover.

The SeaLife center has an active (although not widely known) beluga research program that we are hoping to build out in the years ahead as much of what we can learn from Cook Inlet may be applicable to other declining whale populations. We are reaching out to management agencies in local and State government, industry and other non-profit and research organizations to undertake and contribute to research to answer key unresolved issues such as why are Cook Inlet belugas so slow to recover from stress and what are the key threats to them and their habitat?

Clearly a healthy beluga population in Cook Inlet is a good measure of the health of the inlet. This charismatic species may also be a measure of public support for sound ocean management generally and so we'll be undertaking some social values research over the next few months to see what role we can play in public education about Cook Inlet belugas.

Stay tuned!