To take or not take? Examination of the status quo process for issuing take authorizations of endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales and implications for their recovery

• Published in: Conservation Science and Practice
• Main Authors: Mandy Migura, Celeste Bollini
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2022
• Subjects: beluga; Cook Inlet; creeping normality; Delphinapterus leucas; Endangered Species Act; harassment; Ecology; QH540-549.5; General. Including nature conservation; geographical distribution; QH1-199.5; Beluga; Beluga*
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.590; https://doaj.org/article/ad7bd4ee137241abbfa0934b3fcec680

Abstract Endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales' (CIBWs; Delphinapterus leucas) abundance has declined nearly 80% since the 1970s, and continues to decline 2.3% annually with less than 300 whales remaining. Despite the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act prohibiting take of protected species, exceptions allow the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to authorize take of CIBWs. Harassment, a type of take, has the potential to hinder CIBWs' recovery by contributing to the threat of cumulative effects. Recovery action 62 in the 2016 CIBW Recovery Plan recommends NMFS reassess its current project‐by‐project approach for authorizing harassment takes to determine whether a comprehensive approach is more effective at reducing cumulative effects. To start this assessment, we compiled data from publicly available documents about CIBW research and incidental take authorizations effective since publication of the Recovery Plan, identified the amount of legal harassment NMFS authorized annually, and examined whether a relationship exists between total annual take authorizations and the population size. By the end of 2020, NMFS authorized nearly 120,000 takes of CIBWs cumulatively for 2017–2025. In 2020 alone, 22,350 takes were authorized, equating to 8371% of the estimated population size; research takes accounted for 99.4% of the total authorizations; and 50% of the population was authorized to be incidentally harassed. We found strong evidence of an inverse relationship between total takes authorized annually and the population size. Our results provide support for NMFS immediately implementing action 62 to take a critical look at the existing process for authorizing takes and its potential impacts to CIBW recovery. Several recommendations are provided for improving the take authorization process to help reduce the potential for cumulative effects and improve transparency of take data. To our knowledge, this is the first assessment of cumulative levels of take authorizations of CIBWs at this scale.