May 15, 2012 – ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) – A lawsuit challenging petroleum exploration in Alaska's Cook Inlet was filed Tuesday by four groups, including an Alaska Native village, that claim seismic testing will harm endangered beluga whales.
The plaintiffs are the Native Village of Chickaloon, Natural Resources Defense Council, Center for Biological Diversity and Center for Water Advocacy.
They claim the National Marine Fisheries Service improperly issued exploration permits to Apache Alaska Corp. for high-intensity seismic exploration.
"Each year, there are fewer and fewer of these whales left," Taryn Kiekow, an NRDC attorney, said in an announcement of the lawsuit. "Oil and gas drilling activities expose Cook Inlet beluga whales to earsplitting underwater noise that threatens their survival. All that noise in the marine environment makes survival impossible for these endangered whales."
National Marine Fisheries Service spokeswoman Julie Speegle said from Juneau the agency would have no comment.
"Because it's a legal matter, we cannot comment," she said.
Beluga whales, which can reach 15 feet long, turn white as adults and feed on salmon, smaller fish, crab, shrimp, squid and clams. In late summer, belugas often can be spotted from highways leading from Anchorage, chasing salmon schooled at stream mouths.
From the 1980s on, the Cook Inlet population declined steadily from a high of about 1,300, and the loss was accelerated between 1994 and 1998 when Alaska Natives harvested nearly half of the remaining 650 whales. Belugas have not bounced back despite a hunting ban. A survey in June counted just 284 whales.
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