Oil drilling in Cook Inlet, Alaska, is causing the population of beautiful beluga whales to drop drastically, from 1,300 in 1979 to just 279 whales in the most recent estimate. The decreased whale population and the rapid rate of decline have caught the attention of environmental groups.
Environmental groups have joined together in a battle to save the Belugas from harm. They are suing the US government agency over concerns that endangered beluga whales are getting killed off by oil exploration in Alaska. Their goal is to force the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) to void any permit that allows exploration in the Cook Inlet’s waters.
According to the CBD (Center for Biological Diversity), since the decline amounts to 2.3% over the past ten years, immediate action needs to take place to stop any exploration that Hilcorp Energy Company has planned. Cook Inletkeeper, a nonprofit water conservation and ecology organization based in Alaska, is also suing the NOAA.
Julie Teel Simmonds, the group’s attorney, said: “There’s a duty to reconsider and ‘analyze if there’s new information that’s significant and indicates that the activities that they authorized would cause harm.”
In August 2019, environmental restrictions were loosened up by the Trump administration. As a result, this oil exploration situation emerged. According to environmental campaigners, the revised rules cleared the path for new oil, mining, and gas drilling, along with development in zones where protected species live.
The Cook Inlet region is Alaska’s oldest oil-producing basin. It stretches almost 200 miles from the Gulf of Alaska to Anchorage and provides energy for the south-central area of the state. The beluga whales usually swim off the Anchorage waters, and they love to eat salmon and other fish. Sadly, the closer they get to Alaska’s industrial activities in Cook Inlet, the more dangerous their existence becomes. The conflict between oil development and marine ecosystems is not confined to Alaska. In the South Atlantic, the newly approved Sea Lion oil project off the Falkland Islands has drawn similar objections from conservationists concerned about penguin colonies, seal populations, and the wider marine habitat.
However, it’s not just oil exploration that threatens the beluga whale in the Cook Inlet region; it’s also pollution, industrial noise, heavy ship traffic, and climate change.
