By Ken Smith
Turnagain Times
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Map courtesy of National Marine Fisheries Service |
It was Monday, March 24 around noon during high tide in Turnagain Arm. Bill Connell, owner of Girdwood Tours and Transportation, was shuttling a van of tourists to Alyeska Resort. He was driving past the Bird Point pull-off along the Seward Highway and jokingly told his seven passengers that the ceramic white whales on display in the parking lot were all they’d see that day of the unique Cook Inlet belugas that typically first appear in Turnagain Arm late April and early May to feed on Hooligans—the plentiful oily like smelt-sized fish that migrates into the Arm each spring to spawn.
Then shortly after he passed the fake belugas, Connell spotted the real things just south of Bird Point, or so he thought. Then he saw them again, three gray belugas surfacing and blowing water into the air.
“When I looked out at the Arm, I saw what looked like three spouts and about 20 belugas, a lot of gray ones. One of the passengers said ‘those are whales, we know what whales look like, we’re from Hawaii.”
Connell stopped at the next pull-out, and the group of Hawaiian tourists got out of the van and for the next 20 minutes took pictures of the small pod of whales.
“It was weird because I was making a joke about it when we passed the plastic whales at Bird Point,” he said.
Shortly after Connell stopped, one of his drivers, Shawn Loberg, who was shuttling a Japanese tourist to Alyeska pulled in behind him. Loberg let his Tokyo passenger out, and he started frantically shooting pictures of the whales.
“It looked like they were moving down the Arm towards Girdwood,” Loberg said. “They were breathing, blowing water and mist. I saw about five grayish ones (juveniles) and two white ones (adults). There seemed like a lot more activity; the pod was bigger, but I couldn’t see the ones further out.”
Loberg, 36, said he’s never seen belugas in Turnagain Arm at this time of year.
“I’ve lived here my entire life, and I’ve never noticed them,” he said. “It’s just like when somebody said there’s no seals out there, and I got a picture last year of one sunning itself on the mud bar.”
In fact, a tagging study was conducted from July 29 2001 through May 2003 as part of a multi-year study of fall, winter, and spring movements of beluga whales in Cook Inlet. The project was a cooperative effort among the National Marine Mammal Laboratory and the Alaska Regional Office (both of NMFS) and the Cook Inlet Marine Mammal Council, an organization of native hunters.
The study documented movement of the Cook Inlet belugas utilizing satellite tracking of eight tagged whales. The results showed that Cook Inlet belugas move between Knik and Turnagain Arms throughout the entire year, even when there was ice in Turnagain Arm.
“We have had reports as early as March and early April,” said Barbara Mahoney, a biologist with NMFS’s Anchorage field office. “This is the first report in Turnagain Arm this year. From our satellite data, we have shown belugas in the Turnagain Arm and Knik Arm throughout the winter and early spring and then they show up after the Hooligan arrive.”
Mahoney said they are uncertain what the belugas are feeding on in Turnagain Arm at this time of year, but information gathered from research discovered that 26 species of fish are prevalent in Knik Arm, which shares a similar marine environment as Turnagain Arm.
Generally, biologists and local residents alike have widely believed that Turnagain Arm was not a hospitable environment for marine fish other than salmon and hooligan. However, the recent studies of fish species proved that an abundance of other species like flat fish and cod inhabit knik Arm and probably migrate to Turnagain Arm as well. Belugas have been found to feed on these fish and shellfish like crab and shrimp.
Matt Williams, owner of the Brown Bear Saloon in Bird, and a long-time commercial fisherman, said he has seen belugas in March, and he offered an educated guess as to what they might be feeding on.
“It could be herring,” he said . “The herring gather around Mt. Augustine around this time and then head into Cook Inlet. Belugas are smart, they could have drove them into the Arm and corralled them there.”
The Cook Inlet belugas are genetically and geographically separate from four other populations of Belugas in Alaska. The population of Cook Inlet belugas is currently estimated at around 375, but a new survey will be conducted this summer to more accurately determine the population size.
Native hunting of the whales is considered the prime reason for the decline of the number of Cook Inlet belugas. An estimated 1,300 swam in the waters of the Inlet in the 1980’s, but over the next 20 years the number plummeted to the current levels. The greatest loss occurred between 1994 and 1999 when subsistence hunting averaged an annual harvest of 77 belugas per year.
Hunting of Cook Inlet belugas is no longer allowed, and a decision is expected on April 20 whether to list Cook Inlet belugas as Endangered under the Endangered Species Act; however, an additional six months can be requested before that decision is finally made.