Sightings Cook Inlet Beluga Whale Photo-ID Project Newsletter Fall 2019

Sightings
Cook Inlet Beluga Whale Photo-ID Project Newsletter
Fall 2019 

Photos taken under General Authorization, Letter of Confirmation No. 481-1759, MMPA/ESA Research Permit #14210 and #18016 .  Do not reproduce without permission.

Beluga Season is Here!
       Greetings CIBW fans.  We hope everyone has been enjoying their summer.  It is August already and that means that beluga season has arrived.  Yes, the belugas are around all year but August means that we should start seeing them regularly in Turnagain Arm.  Reports of belugas have started to trickle in along Turnagain Arm and Knik Arm.  Check out the 2019 sightings map to see where the belugas are being seen on our website, and get out there and see these wonderful animals for yourself (and report your sightings on the website- it helps us plan our research trips and all results are shared with the public, colleagues, and agencies). Thank you to everyone who has been reporting their sightings to us, keep up the good work and keep those reports and photographs coming in.
      The CIBW Photo-ID Project Team is still in full swing with our field season, which began in May and will go until October. We had some great encounters with belugas this summer along the Susitna River Delta and we are now seasonally expanding our surveys into Knik Arm, Eagle Bay, Chickaloon Bay, and Turnagain Arm. We hope to see you out there along the Seward Highway during one of our surveys. 
        If you want to participate in monitoring belugas, you can contact the newly formed Alaska Beluga Monitoring Partnership citizen science program.  They will be conducting citizen science monitoring programs along Turnagain Arm, Ship Creek and the Kenai River. Also, the third annual Belugas Count! Event is coming up.  The CIBW Photo-ID Team will be at Bird Point on September 21, 2018 between 10 am and 2 pm for the Belugas Count Event!  So come and join us!  If you have photos to share, please bring them on a thumb drive to the event at the zoo afterwards, or upload them on our website.  Check out the details below.
 
 
Happy Beluga Viewing!
The CIBW Photo-ID Project Team
 
 

 2019 Belugas Count!
September 21,2019
Join us for the 2019 Belugas Count! Event.  
This all-day event aims to bring together citizens to focus on the endangered Cook Inlet beluga whale, fostering local pride, awareness, and stewardship. It is a collaboration between a variety of federal and state agencies, local and national organizations, as well as individuals. Any beluga whales counted will be entered into the Cook Inlet Beluga Whale Photo-ID Sightings map and the  Cook Inlet Beluga Whale Ecosystem Portal/CIBW Photo-ID Project Sightings map, which is used by Cook Inlet beluga managers and researchers to help assess location and abundance information.
The CIBW Photo-ID team will be at the Bird Point Station between 10 am and 2 pm and we will also have a booth at the zoo from 1 pm and 5 pm.  Stop by at either location and say hello.
For more information on the 2019 Belugas Count!  Event click on the button below. 
 

Click here for more information about Belugas Count 2019

Other Beluga News

Photo Courtesy ADN.
 
All that noise
You have probably noticed all the noise that has come from the airplanes due to the runway closures at the airport.  The noise can make talking, listening and sleeping very difficult.  As humans we have to tools to deal with these problems.  We can put in ear plugs, use noise cancelling head phones or just leave the area. Imagine that you are a marine mammal and that you live in water where sound travels about four times faster than in air and you don't have the same tools to deal with the sound.  How would all that noise affect you?

Anthropogenic Noise and the Endangered Cook Inlet Beluga Whale, Delphinapterus leucas: Acoustic Considerations for Management (Castellote et al. 2019)

 Below are links to an article from the journal Nature that talks about anthropogenic noise (noise created by human activity) and ocean life, and a recently published paper on the effects of anthropogenic noise and Cook Inlet beluga whales.

Link to Nature Ocean uproar: saving marine life from a barrage of noise

Beluga in the Spotlight 
 
This issue's beluga in the spotlight is Kenai.
 
Kenai is one of the longest photographed whales in the photo-id catalog.  Kenai has been photographed every year since 2005 and we have photographs of both sides of this whale making it a dual-side whale in our catalog. We have never photographed Kenai with a calf, so this whale is either a male or non-reproducing female. Kenai has unique, dark pigmentation along the caudal peduncle area on both the right and left sides.  Keep an eye out for Kenai this Fall and let us know if you see this whale.
 
The photo below is a left-side photograph of Kenai taken by the Cook Inlet Beluga Whale Photo-ID Project.

This email was created with Wix.‌ Discover More