Headline THE CUTEST WHALE
Subhead COOK INLET BELUGAS HAVE PLENTY OF CHARISMA BUT REMAIN MYSTERIOUS TO BIOLOGISTS
Sumhead
Labelhead
Run Date 7/27/1997 Day Sunday
Page N1 Section Lifestyles
Illustrator Illustrated By Mindy Dwyer By Bob Hallinen Daily News Photo
Story Byline By Sandi Mcdaniel Daily News Reporter
To central Yupiks, they are cetuaq. To Inupiat, they are sisuaq. To most of us, however, beluga whales are oversized kewpie dolls, swimming bratwursts or portly, white porpoises, rolling in Cook Inlet like bleached logs. We who live in the vicinity of the Inlet (more than half our state's population) can claim these whales as our own. Throughout summer, we might spot hundreds of them working their way up Turnagain Arm or feeding near the mouths of rivers. TX: The length and weight of a compact car, belugas are sleek, clean whales, absent of barnacles. ''Think back to Ghostbusters,'' said John Hall, a former marine mammal biologist in Alaska who now lives in Walnut Creek, Calif. ''Remember the giant marshmallow guy coming down the street? Put a fluke on the back end of that.'' While bowhead whales seem to bare their teeth, and humpbacks display a permanent frown, the beluga wears a peppy smile as engaging and friendly as Flipper's. On the cute scale, the only thing missing is actual dimples. Yet there is a strange dignity about these creatures -- as if they hold secrets they might communicate with us sadly uncomprehending humans if only we had the wit to understand. There is much to know. Those who study the Cook Inlet belugas have yet to uncover basic facts about their social structure, movements, behavior and general life history. No one knows why the whales sometimes congregate in pods of 1,000 or more but other times travel in a variety of small groupings. Belugas are complex navigators, yet periodically strand themselves in the Inlet. Why? Biologists know belugas create nurseries to protect their calves. But what social sophistication is at work when a mother who has lost a calf is observed nosing a log as a surrogate? Cook Inlet belugas are one of the most southern populations of belugas in the world. While they do not show significant toxic contamination, there is cause to worry about harassment by power skiers, the impact of gas lease activities and the threat of a major oil spill, which could destroy the entire stock. And what other stresses will come from the whales' proximity with industry? Slowly, clues about belugas are emerging, and genetics may play a key role. DNA markers indicate Cook Inlet belugas have evolved differently from other belugas, isolated in the Inlet for hundreds of generations, perhaps since the Pleistocene. Biologists are keen to know what unique adaptations the whales have made to the Inlet's environment. But that's not so easy. ''They have a very easy time fooling the biologists,'' said Lloyd Lowry of the Department of Fish and Game in Fairbanks. ''I think they are quite clever . . . probably one of the most puzzling animals that I think you could find to deal with in Alaska.'' BELUGAS VS. BIOLOGISTS One day in mid-July, Barbara Mahoney, a biologist for the National Marine Fisheries Service, scanned the thin, brown gravy of Cook Inlet. She and her boat driver had departed from the public launch at Ship Creek on the high tide. The two wore bright orange float suits and waterproof boots. In a hard-hulled skiff with inflatable pontoons, they sped toward Sleeping Lady at 20 knots. About 45 minutes into the Inlet, Mahoney spotted an odd-shaped vessel zipping across the water -- a john boat topped by a flat, homemade cabin. She recognized the boat and the driver: whale hunters. Both parties slowed and waltzed on the choppy Inlet. Two children stood on the bow of the whaling boat. Inside, passengers peered out. No one wore life jackets. ''Have you seen any whales?'' Mahoney yelled. Arms pointed in the direction Mahoney had been headed, and as the homemade boat revved away, the answer floated back over the waves: ''Big Su.'' Near the mouth of the Susitna River, a series of geysers exploded on the surf, and Mahoney scrambled to count about a dozen whales feeding on the tide. The sighting lasted only a few seconds before the belugas, sensitive to the predation of hunters, vanished beneath the silty water. With a squall building on the Inlet, the driver turned back toward the city, which now appeared as odd-sized teeth on a broken horizon. For hours, the skiff jumped waves, slamming hard against the water, salting the lips and punishing the spines of everyone aboard. The day's work was recorded as a single, tedious notation in Mahoney's field book. After four summers of aerial surveys, NMFS estimates the population of Cook Inlet belugas at close to 1,000. But biologists are uneasy with that number and continually attempt to refine it. MYSTERIOUS, ELUSIVE With their thick coats of blubber, belugas thrive in the frigid waters of Alaska, Canada, Russia, Norway and Greenland. There are an estimated 70,000 to 100,000 worldwide. Best estimates for Alaska waters -- 40,000 to 50,000. Researchers believe the Cook Inlet stock inhabits the Gulf of Alaska from Yakutat to Kodiak Island, although belugas are not often seen in Prince William Sound. Belugas appear in Kachemak Bay by mid-May, and some head for for the Susitna River to feed on hooligan, an oily fish that may be the perfect energy boost after a long winter. By midsummer, the whales work their way up the Inlet, but by August seem to break into small pods. The big hooligan runs are played out by then, said Mahoney, who speculates the whales disperse to work smaller salmon runs. While sightings are common in summer, no one has discovered where belugas go in winter. It's possible they don't go anywhere at all, wintering unseen in the Inlet. Natives report they often don't take belugas early in the summer because they're too skinny. This indicates belugas might be feeding voraciously all summer to enable them to lie low. Biologists might know more, save for the Inlet's murky, dishwater tides. Belugas easily navigate the silt with their sonar -- possibly the most advanced of any sea mammal. While swimming, they make short dives, lasting an average of 29 seconds. ''They almost swim like a person would, breaking every few seconds,'' said Mahoney. Researchers trying to count the whales or survey their movements can't see them underwater, so they must estimate how many whales they are not seeing. In summers past, NMFS biologists have tried chasing belugas in boats with long, aluminum poles. They managed to stick radio transmitters to the whales that stayed on long enough to provide data, but no useful sample could be taken. In June, biologists attempted to catch whales with nets and affix satellite transmitters to them. While they got a few hits on their nets, they did not catch any belugas. ''We spent a lot of time and a lot of gas and a lot of eyestrain,'' said Brad Smith, an NMFS biologist. ''It's not an easy animal to survey.'' BELUGA SECRETS Despite their shy ways, or perhaps because of them, scientists are fascinated with belugas. The whales' intelligent brown eyes and curiosity win them many admirers. Known as sea canaries, belugas are notable for their extensive language -- some researchers say at least 30 distinct songs, observed as barks, whistles, deep sighs, belches, grunting, gnashing and something like the lowing of an ox. ''My wife says it sounds like a baby crying,'' said Joel Blatchford, an Inupiat hunter who has pursued belugas in the Inlet since 1969. ''They're smart. They'll come up to your boat, and you can hear them coming from a mile away.'' Charles Greene, an underwater sound expert from Santa Barbara, Calif., has observed belugas from about 10 feet away as they made their way through spring ice. His hydrophone is sensitive enough to pick up the wash of waves from bubbles, and he describes the calls of the whales as a series of chirps, squeals and clicks, sounds that may relate to echolocation -- the ability to navigate by sensing sound waves. ''Can you picture the New Year's Eve noisemaker that makes a rasping, clicking sound? That's what the beluga echolocating clicks sound like,'' he said. ''I've noticed with belugas and narwhals that when I drop my hydrophone in the water, say off the edge of an ice fall, I can hear all this clicking increase.'' Greene assumes the whales are deciding whether his equipment would be good to eat. Underwater, belugas sometimes rest in a vertical position and may calmly observe human intruders. ''They're just so curious. They can't help themselves from coming to look at you,'' said Flip Nicklin, a free-lance whale photographer for National Geographic. Belugas make terrific subjects, said the photographer, on assignment in Halifax, Nova Scotia. On pack ice once, he observed a party of belugas madden a polar bear by circling and blowing bubbles just out of reach. And yet the whales often seem as doltish as sheep, said Nicklin, who will speak about whales at the University of Alaska Anchorage on Sept. 15. The beluga has a flexible neck that gives the animal an unnerving human ability to swivel its head side to side. It also has flexible lips to scoop up prey in mud and ice. But most interesting of all is a prominent bulge on the beluga's head, known as a ''melon.'' Belugas change the shape of the melon with muscle contractions, which are pronounced, observers say. ''We can actually see the melons move, thousands of feet away,'' said David Rugh, a wildlife biologist with the National Marine Mammal Laboratory in Seattle. Scientists are trying to discover how the melon, filled with a clear oil, relates to the beluga's ability to navigate by echolocation. They suspect it is a sort of acoustical lens, reverberating underwater sounds. This might explain how a beluga can track prey without seeing it and why fishermen have observed that if one beluga locates a hole in netting, others will follow, even in thick, murky water. Robert Suydam, a researcher for the North Slope Borough in Point Lay, was surprised by how docile a beluga became once netted in a tagging project. He surmised that because the whale's head was covered by a net, its sonar was blocked, leaving it blind in the water and helpless. THE CHASE, THE KILL Belugas hunt the shallow waters of bays, inlets and rivers for their prey, limiting their meal to anything that slides down the esophagus whole -- usually something in the range of nine pounds. The whales tolerate salinity changes and follow their prey into the mouths of rivers; one beluga was spotted 600 miles up the Yukon River. The whales have chased silver salmon in Eagle River, crashing into the banks while feeding. When belugas are not chasing prey, they are the chased. In June 1994, almost 200 belugas beached themselves near the mouth of the Susitna River -- the largest whale stranding here ever. High and dry for several hours, the whales escaped on the tide. Such strandings occur periodically and mystify scientists. They speculate killer whales drive belugas onto sandbars or that the whales, in the excitement of feeding, misjudge the depth of the water. It doesn't seem that belugas strand themselves because they're sick or lost or blindly following the route of a lead whale off course. Biologists respond to beachings by coating whales with vitamin E to heal damaged skin and cooling them with wet blankets. ''It's a very emotionally charged thing,'' said Smith, who attended stranded belugas in Turnagain Arm in 1996. Mother-and-calf pairs squealed repeatedly, he said. The skin of the whales, smooth and clean, grew dry and brittle in the sun. In that case, four whales suffocated, but often, belugas beached for several hours merely swim away on the tide, seemingly unharmed by their ordeal. If belugas have super-sophisticated sonar, why can't they avoid hitting the beach? Is it possible they've adapted beaching as a risky but nonfatal means of escaping predators or pursuing prey? Rugh doesn't think so. The whales probably do retreat to shallow channels to avoid killer whales, he said. What gets them in trouble is a rapidly retreating tide. What's more, sonar doesn't work that well on a lateral surface. In short, they goof. BELUGA GENETICS A few weeks ago, Greg O'Corry-Crowe was in Point Lay on the northwest coast, asking hunters for skin samples of their beluga kills. The NMFS biologist from La Jolla, Calif., has analyzed the DNA of more than 400 beluga whales in Alaska and Canada. He's confirmed genetic differences between the five distinct stocks of belugas in Alaska waters. Why are these whales different? Because belugas are what biologists call philopatric -- deeply rooted in a traditional home base. They have the ability to migrate thousands of miles, but it simply doesn't occur to Cook Inlet belugas to swim through Unimak Pass and join belugas in the Bristol Bay stock. In the interest of biodiversity, the uniqueness of Cook Inlet belugas makes preserving them more important, the biologist said. To create a baseline of information about belugas, the University of Alaska Museum in Fairbanks archives tissue samples from the whales and a variety of Alaska mammals. This library of 2mm slivers of kidney, liver, heart and spleen is stored in tiny sample boxes in a chest freezer kept at minus 80 degrees Celsius. The samples will last indefinitely, collection manager Gordon Jarrell said, and may be used by researchers in decades, even centuries to come. That way, if something goes awry with Cook Inlet belugas, scientists will have a better chance of knowing what happened. But since our belugas are so adapted to their environment, we should not presume we could re-colonize, said O'Corry-Crowe. ''What we've got is what we've got.''
Cutline Federal biologist Barbara Mahoney scans the waters of upper Cook Inlet for the telltale spouts of belugas. Boat driver Dan Vos and Mahoney head out into Cook Inlet in search of belugas. BELUGA-WATCHING TIPS Use binoculars to scan for belugas in Cook Inlet on the high tide. They appear as white bumps in the gray water. They don't leap, but roll slowly as they swim, often breathing in unison. Watch for them from May through September, or earlier in Turnagain Arm as the silver salmon appear. Top lookouts around Anchorage are: * The boat launch at Ship Creek offers a view of belugas feeding on salmon at the mouth of the creek. * At Point Woronzof, a rift forms in Knik Arm, and belugas sometimes mill about or swim by, feeding 10 to 15 feet offshore. This may be a migration corridor. * Walk the Coastal Trail between Westchester Lagoon and Point Woronzof to search for whales working their way across Knik Arm. * Beluga Point is an aptly named turnout on Seward Highway. Look for whales there all summer, but particularly in August and September. BELUGA STRANDINGS IN UPPER COOK INLET October 1988 -- 27 belugas stranded; all survived. July 1993 -- 10 belugas stranded; one died. June 1994 -- 190 belugas stranded; all survived. June 1996 -- 63 belugas stranded; all survived. August 1996 -- 60 belugas stranded; four died. September 1996 -- reports of 20 to 30 belugas stranded; one died. October 1996 -- reports of 10 to 20 belugas stranded; all survived. -- National Marine Fisheries Service BELUGAS ON THE NEWSLINE Charles Greene, an underwater sound expert from California, recorded beluga songs with a hydrophone in 1980. The whales were swimming after midnight about a half-mile offshore on the Mackenzie River delta in Canada's Northwest Territories. The water was about 26 feet deep. Scientists still are trying to discover what behavior is associated with individual calls. To hear the sound of belugas, dial 277-1500, then press code 7665. BELUGA ENCOUNTER ''Beluga whales seem to play games, especially hide-and-seek along the edges of the floes. We could look down from the ice and see a dozen white faces of the belugas looking up at us. While diving with them in the waters of Lancaster Sound in the Canadian Arctic, I would frequently watch one beluga come up to check me out. Then the whale would go away, but it would come back in a few minutes with three or four dozen belugas.'' -- photographer Flip Nicklin from ''With the Whales''
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