State of Alaska Testimony - July 19, 2007, Homer, AK

July 2007 State of Alaska Testimony on National Marine Fisheries Service Proposed Rule to list the Cook Inlet beluga whales as an endangered species

My name is Tina Cunning.  I am testifying at the request of the Governor’s Office on behalf of the State of Alaska.  The State will be submitting additional written testimony.

National Marine Fisheries Service published a final rule on June 22, 2000, which responded to previous petitions to list the Cook Inlet stock of beluga whales as endangered.  The Service had evaluated the factors in the petitions, plus best available scientific information and management actions.  The Service concluded that hunting was the only factor reducing the population and adopted regulations to manage harvests cooperatively with Alaska Natives.  Thus, the Service determined that listing under the Endangered Species Act was not warranted.

Nothing has changed since 2000 to warrant a listing under ESA today.

At that time, the Service predicted that the population would be very slow to recover because of its low reproductive rate.  Since then, the Service developed co-management agreements with Alaska Native organizations to provide for subsistence and to conserve whales, including suspending hunting some years to encourage recovery of the population. 

According to the recent Status Assessment and the evaluation of factors such as habitat, prey, predation, disease, pollution, and noise, the Service finds nothing has changed that would cause further decline.  The activities that the Service and State can regulate, such as oil and gas development, construction, and vessel traffic, are already being closely examined and controlled and are not causing a decline. 

Surveys of beluga numbers in Cook Inlet are difficult.  Recent studies show that the young whales, which are grayer and hard to count, may be stable or increasing.  That means that there is an increased chance of undercounting and there could be more reproduction in the upcoming years.  Averaging in counts that showed a precipitous decline before excessive hunting was restricted in 1999 is inappropriate.  The important numbers are those since 1999, which indicate a stable trend within the confidence intervals around the estimates. 

In 2000, the Service committed to cooperate with the State and others to adopt a conservation plan that would seek funding to focus on better survey information and research to obtain better information on other factors that influence the population.  A final Conservation Plan has neither been cooperatively drafted nor adopted and implemented. 

We urge the Service to join the November 2006 request by the mayors of Anchorage, Matanuska-Susitna Borough, and Kenai Peninsula to combine efforts to pursue funding for 3-5 years in order to fully study these whales.

A listing would divert the Service’s limited resources by requiring every federal decision that permits, funds, or conducts any activity in the entire Cook Inlet watershed to undergo consultation reviews under ESA.  That effort, time, and money would be better spent devoted to improving our knowledge about belugas.

We urge the Service to pursue cooperative conservation work for the benefit of belugas rather than an unwarranted Endangered Species Act listing that will have little, if any, benefit for the Cook Inlet stock of beluga whales.