What a joy it has been to do this pleasant assignment in the Alamo city (NGP Photo)!  Home soon….

ADN, by Richard Mauer.  Federal fishery managers on Friday designated large stretches of Cook Inlet as critical habitat for endangered beluga whales, leading to an outcry from political and business leaders that the regional economy will be strangled.  …  "That means no construction, drilling or dredging," House Speaker Mike Chenault said in a statement. "We were hoping to see the benefit of state participation in (oil) drilling this summer. Now? It’s out the window."  … Not quite, said the federal supervisor in Anchorage who speaks for the National Marine Fisheries Service on the issue, biologist Brad Smith.  

"We’re the stewards of the whales," Smith said. "What we’re trying to do is avoid any activity or actions that are contrary to their ability to recover. That certainly does not mean all activity stops."  The habitat designation is a requirement of the federal Endangered Species Act that was all but ordained once Cook Inlet belugas were declared endangered in 2008. It covers 3,013 square miles of shoreline and marine area, including all of Kachemak Bay, all of upper Cook Inlet north from about Clam Gulch, and the west side shoreline of lower Cook Inlet.  A sliver of shoreline and water, encompassing the Port of Anchorage and Point MacKenzie, was excluded from the designated habitat on national security grounds. Military areas north of the port were excluded because of a pre-existing environmental agreement between the Defense Department and the National Marine Fisheries Service.  Biologists say the Cook Inlet beluga population is a distinctive stock of the small, toothed whale famously known for its white color, though the young are gray, perhaps for protection from predators like killer whales. Cook Inlet had an estimated 1,300 belugas in 1979, a number that had shrunk to an estimated 278 by 2005. A 2008 survey showed a gain to about 375 animals, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in one of its reports on Cook Inlet belugas.  Smith, the federal biologist, said the only known cause for the decline was over-hunting. Natives in the Cook Inlet region, using aboriginal hunting rights, traditionally took a few whales every year with no effect on the population, Smith said. But in the 1970s and 1980s, he said, the migration of Natives from western and northern coastal areas of Alaska to Anchorage led to the unregulated hunting of perhaps 100 or more belugas a year, an unsustainable number.