The 300 beluga whales which live in the heavily used waters off the coast of Anchorage in Alaska have finally been given protection under United States federal law. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) in the US has proposed a new rule to list the animals  as Endangered under the Endangered Species Act, in response to a listing petition filed in April 2006, and public support from individuals around the globe, including WDCS supporters.
 
The status 'endangered' under the Endangered Species Act is the highest level of protection awarded to wildlife under US federal law and listings under it demand a series of actions by the Government to protect the species. In the case of the belugas of Cook Inlet, these measures will include identifying critical habitat and the development of a recovery plan in addition to funding research into the population decline.
 
The long awaited decision comes 8 years after a previous listing petition filed in 1999. At that time the NMFS, pointed to subsistence hunting as a possible explanation for the decline, and instead of listing the belugas under the Endangered Species Act, the belugas were instead listed as depleted, under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Despite limited and even cancelled subsistence hunting of the belugas, the population has shown no sign of recovering.  
 
Recently, the US Government concluded that the population could go extinct in as little as 26 years if nothing was done to protect them.  
 
WDCS would like to thank all those who responded to our action alert to Save the Cook Inlet Belugas and congratulates the US Government on the decision.