Children Find Dead Pregnant Beluga Whale During Field Trip

A class of young school children from Alaska found a dead beluga whale on the beach during a weekly field trip. The Winterberry Elementary School second graders came across the whale along the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail.   According to their teacher, Meg Eggleston, the children saw the whale moving its tail and were convinced the whale will be fine.   But the whale, dead for hours, had already begun to decompose. 

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Thursday night, the National Marine Fisheries were notified a beluga was floating in Cook Inlet.  Unfortunately, it was too late in the evening for the team to mobilize.  The whale washed up Friday morning on Bootlegger’s Cove, near Anchorage.  A team was sent out to perform an on-shore necropsy.  On Friday afternoon, experts discovered the whale was pregnant.  Pathologists are studying tissue samples to determine the cause of death.

Beluga Whales

Beluga whales, Delphinapterus leucas, are often referred to as “white whales.”  Beluga calves are a dark grayish or brownish color when they are born.  Due to a reduction in melanin, they gradually become lighter as they age.  Once they reach sexual maturity, around five years of age, adults range in color from a yellowish-white to creamy white.

Beluga whales measure from 13 to 20 feet in length and weigh 2,000 to 3,000 pounds.  They are social creatures and live together in small groups, called pods.  The beluga eats about 40 to 60 pounds of food each day.  Unlike humans, they don’t chew their food – they swallow it whole.

Once considered Vulnerable, due to “substantial uncertainty about numbers and trends for at least some parts of the range,” the species is currently considered Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List.   Threats to the beluga include illegal hunting, habitat loss, pollution, strandings, climate change and harassment.

Cook Inlet Beluga Whales

According to a news release issued last week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),  the population of beluga whales in Cook Inlet continues to decline.

In the 1980s, it is estimated there were 1,300 beluga whales in Cook Inlet.  In 1994, the numbers dropped to 653.  For the past few years, approximately 375 beluga whales remained in the area.   In June, scientists conducted aerial surveys and determined only 321 beluga whales exist in Cook Inlet today.
In 2008, the Cook Inlet beluga whales were listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
The four other beluga whale groups in Alaska, with populations in the thousands, are not listed as endangered or threatened.

Beluga whale photo Serg!o CC

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