The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released an updated population estimate for Cook Inlet beluga whales, which offers hope in what has been a 20 year decline.
The last beluga survey was in 2018, but the pandemic and weather delayed the count until this year, which brought scientists encouraging news about the status of this endangered species.
The latest numbers have led researchers to declare the population stable for the first time in decades. This comes after a 75 percent decline in Cook Inlet belugas that goes back to 1979, when their historical population was at 1,300. Today, there are an estimated 331 belugas in Cook Inlet, up from 279 in 2018, an increase of 51 whales.
These numbers give NOAA biologists like Paul Wade the confidence to declare the Cook Inlet population as finally stable.
“However, when we look back over the ten-year window, because ten years gives us enough data points to make a conclusive statement," Wade said, "it looks like it actually was declining , then increased and then overall, that equals out to being stable.”
Lower levels of noise and water pollution may have helped the belugas, but scientists say several more years of research will be needed to pinpoint the cause of their their recovery.
Over the last 44 years, biologists have tracked a decline in numbers by about two percent a year.
Ragen Davey, the Alaska Marine Representative for the Defenders of Wildlife, is a chemist working to learn more about the impacts of pollution on Cook Inlet belugas.
She says a list of contaminants in Cook Inlet was identified ten years ago, with hundreds of mixing zones allowed, but so far, tests to study pollution in those zones have yet to yield definitive results about every impurity found in the area.
“What I think would be great is if they did have to test every contaminant, because then you can directly relate it to a source," Davey said. "But that's not how it goes."
Davey says researchers do not test and report on every contaminant, only those that exceed allowable limits.
Another concern has come up recently — a small population of beached whales with failed pregnancies or calves that have birth defects, but those numbers are too small to provide conclusive data.
Davey says scientists are a long ways from getting a complete picture of how the belugas are doing.
While Davey calls the uptick in beluga numbers heartening, she says there are still many questions that need to be answered about food availability, pollution sources and noise.
