Tales of an Urban Whale: Science and Conservation of Cook Inlet Belugas

Biodiversity conservation in urban environments is challenging on a variety of fronts: multiple anthropogenic stressors include habitat loss and degradation, cross-sector stakeholders with competing interests, socio-economic... [ view full abstract ]

Biodiversity conservation in urban environments is challenging on a variety of fronts: multiple anthropogenic stressors include habitat loss and degradation, cross-sector stakeholders with competing interests, socio-economic pressures regulatory requirements, and disconnected management agencies to name a few. Cook Inlet beluga whales are a geographically isolated population whose contemporary range lies largely beside the most urbanized environment in Alaska – the Municipality of Anchorage, a sprawling metropolis of 300,000 people. The Cook Inlet beluga whale stock may once have numbered as many as 1,300 individuals but declined dramatically during the 1990's as a result of unregulated subsistence hunting. In 2008 NOAA designated this iconic whale as endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. However, they have failed to recover despite a moratorium on hunting; an abundance survey in 2016 estimated 328 belugas left. The population faces a myriad of ongoing threats, including noise, continued urbanization and development, oil and gas development, contaminant pollution, shipping, military activities, disease, and prey reduction. This presentation will discuss current (e.g., quantifying contaminants in prey from pharmaceuticals and personal care products) and future (e.g., using teeth to look at age of first reproduction) research aimed at recovering the population, Belugas Count! a new outreach and engagement effort to build awareness, and lessons learned for improving conservation of urban wildlife sentinels.