Praise: Protection for Beluga Whales

By 1998, the number of beluga whales had dropped to an estimated 347, a number dangerously close to extinction.  From Courthouse News Service, we learn that natives ceased hunting and that Alaska wanted the beluga removed from the endangered species list last year.

This ended in 1999 after Native Alaskans voluntarily curtailed their subsistence harvest. This became codified in a moratorium in 2000, and subsistence harvest continues to be regulated through co-management by tribes and federal agencies, Alaska claims.

Native American tribes have traditionally hunted whales and other Arctic animals to survive. Since fish-eating beluga whales are at the top of the food chain, they are also threatened by accumulation of toxins in their blubber.

Alaska claims that the 2008 listing of the Cook Inlet beluga as a distinct population segment did not consider that the stock is recovering due to conservation efforts.

The state wants the federal protections and endangered species listing set aside.

A lawsuit was filed by then-Governor Sarah Palin.

Alaska claims the federal protection will hurt the state's fishing, drilling and transportation industries, and interfere with public services.

In its federal complaint, Alaska claims that after the Cook Inlet beluga population plummeted in the second half of the 1990s, the state instituted conservation measured that stabilized the population.

On Monday, CBS News reports that the judge ruled and the whales won.

Judge Royce C. Lambeth of U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., said the National Marine Fisheries Service properly followed requirements of the Endangered Species Act and used the best science available in making its determination.

Republicans in Alaska continue to attempt to put industry ahead of environmental concerns.

The state unsuccessfully sued to overturn the listing of polar bears as a threatened species and is suing to overturn restrictions on commercial mackerel and cod fishing in the western Aleutian Islands aimed at protecting endangered Steller sea lions.

Rebecca Noblin, an Anchorage attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of six environmental groups that intervened in the case, said Lambeth's beluga decision shows the state is wasting taxpayer money on a frivolous challenge.

National Geographic has some good data on the nature of the beluga whales, which may explain why they garner such attention.  The picture is from the National Geographic page.

It is good that the Judge put the science first.  That we have driven beluga whales and too many other species to the brink of extinction is inexcusable.  At least the beluga whales survive for now.