CREDIT: JUPITER IMAGES
The belugas of Alaska's Cook Inlet are a genetically distinct population that has probably been isolated for several thousand years. Now the numbers of these toothed white whales (Delphinapterus leucas) have dwindled to only 302. They are likely to disappear within the century unless the federal government lists them as endangered, says the National Marine Fisheries Service, which proposed the listing on 19 April.
"We don't have a fix yet on why these belugas are declining," says Rod Hobbs, a marine mammal biologist at the National Marine Mammal Laboratory in Seattle, Washington. Possible causes are pollution, habitat loss, or a shortage of salmon, their preferred food.
As recently as the 1980s, an estimated 1300 belugas swam in the inlet. Subsistence hunting by native Alaskans took its toll, but tighter hunting regulations put in place in 1999 did not stop the population from shrinking--by more than 4% a year. "We thought the whales would have shown signs of recovery by now," says Hobbs, but hunting seems only to have "masked the real problem." He notes that hunters have also reported a decrease in the belugas' blubber content.
More-detailed studies of the whales are planned. Once they are listed as endangered, hunting will be banned, and a recovery plan will be developed to bring back the population to about 780 animals.
