Conservationists Sue to Protect Beluga Whales of Cook Inlet

The suit, filed in federal court in Washington, DC by the Center for Biological Diversity, Cook Inletkeeper, Natural Resources Defense Council, North Gulf Oceanic Society, and the Alaska Center for the Environment, seeks to compel the federal government to immediately make a final listing determination for the beluga population.

"There is simply no lawful reason for further delay in protecting the Cook Inlet beluga whale," said Vicki Clark, an attorney with Trustees for Alaska who represents the conservation groups in their suit. "If we don't act soon, we stand to lose this treasured part of Alaska's and the United States' natural heritage."

The Cook Inlet beluga whale, Delphinapterus leucas, is a genetically distinct and geographically isolated population whose numbers have plummeted since the 1980s, when National Marine Fisheries Service scientists estimated the Cook Inlet beluga population numbered about 1,300 whales.

Beluga whale in Cook Inlet (Photo courtesy NOAA)

Infrastructure projects - including the proposed Knik Arm Bridge, the Port of Anchorage Expansion, the Chuitna coal strip mine, and the Port MacKenzie expansion - will directly affect some of the whale's most important habitat.

Following a 2006 petition from the conservation groups, the agency proposed to list the Cook Inlet beluga as endangered in April 2007. By law the agency was required to finalize the listing rule no later than April 20, 2008.

Instead, on April 22, the agency, bowing to pressure from development interests and the State of Alaska, announced that due to a "substantial disagreement" in the science it would delay the decision by six months.

The federal Marine Mammal Commission has stated that the purported scientific disagreement is "not scientifically credible."

In a May 1 letter to Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, the commission recommends that the Department of Commerce "withdraw the six-month extension for determining whether to list the Cook Inlet beluga whale population, proceed immediately with an affirmative listing decision under the Endangered Species Act, and initiate all actions that flow from such a listing to conserve this population and promote its recovery."

"The disagreement highlighted by the Service is whether there is a positive trend in response to harvest control measures established in 1999," the commission said in its letter. "Between now and the end of the six-month extension, the only additional information on the trend will be a census estimate for 2008."

NOAA Fisheries Service conducted the annual aerial survey for beluga whales in Cook Inlet in June and is expected to provide the population estimate in September.

The commission believes that the survey is just "one more data point" and that is "an insufficient and unreasonable basis for delaying a listing decision that withholds protective measures from a population that, as indicated by independent analysis and the most recent analysis by the Service's own scientists, is clearly at high risk of extinction and in need of the protection of the Endangered Species Act."

Cook Inlet is the most populated and fastest-growing watershed in Alaska, and subject to development pressures from oil and gas production, sewage discharge, and contaminated runoff and spills, which potentially affect the beluga whale and its habitat.

Infrastructure projects - including the proposed Knik Arm Bridge, the Port of Anchorage Expansion, the Chuitna coal strip mine, and the Port MacKenzie expansion - will directly affect some of the whale's most important habitat.

"The experts agree: the science to list the Cook Inlet beluga is clear," said Bob Shavelson of Cook Inletkeeper, who says the delay is due to the reluctance of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to allow the listing.

"The Palin administration's request for delay and the Bush administration's willingness to do so are not based in science but rather based on an ideology that always favors industry over the environment." he said.

The conservation groups filed a 60 day notice of intent to sue as required by the Endangered Species Act immediately after the Fisheries Service announced the delay in listing the beluga in April. This suit, filed June 30, follows the end of the 60-day notice period.

"If the Cook Inlet beluga whale is to survive the coming decades it needs the protections that only the Endangered Species Act can provide," said Brendan Cummings, oceans program director for the Center for Biological Diversity and one of the lawyers filing the lawsuit. "It's simply unacceptable to sacrifice endangered whales on the altar of oil company profits."

Cook Inlet belugas are one of five populations of belugas recognized within U.S. waters. The other beluga populations inhabit Bristol Bay, the eastern Bering Sea, the eastern Chukchi Sea, and the Beaufort Sea.

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