Defenders in Alaska

Defenders in Action: Restoring the Cook Inlet Beluga Whale

Although protected by the Endangered Species Act, the Cook Inlet beluga whale’s numbers has been steadily declining since the 1980s. The last official count, in 2009, found only 321 of these Arctic icons still living in the wild.

How We’re Helping

Defenders serves on the National Marine Fisheries Service Cook Inlet Beluga Recovery team, which is expected to release a recovery plan for the species for public review in 2013.
Since 2006 Defenders has also been part of a coalition of local and national conservation groups, concerned citizens and scientists that successfully worked to get the Cook Inlet beluga whale listed as endangered in 2007. We were part of the coalition that successfully fought the state of Alaska in the courts as it tried to strip the whale’s protections.
Defenders also helped to fund and launch the Anchorage Coastal Beluga Survey (ACBS) in 2008, which trains citizen scientists each spring to collect land-based data on whale populations that is shared with NMFS.

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