Join Ragen Davey from Defenders of Wildlife, and partners in monitoring for endangered Cook Inlet Belugas. Belugas Count! is an annual celebration that brings together members of the public to focus on the endangered Cook Inlet Beluga Whale, fostering local pride, awareness, and stewardship.
Video Transcript:
Hey, everyone. Ragan Davey with the Alaska Office of Defenders of Wildlife.
And I want to talk about how the day went at Belugas Count!
The day started out at 10:00, and we started our monitoring session at Ship Creek.
We had such a great turnout. We had cornhole. We had Beluga trivia.
It was a gorgeous, sunny day, and I am amazed at the amount of people who came out to support
and look for Beluga Whales with us.
Unfortunately, we did not see whales at our site at Ship Creek.
However, across the Arm there were 88 individual sightings of whales. So that’s 88 individual sightings, not necessarily 88 individual whales.
Whales were spotted all up along Turnagain Arm and down in the Kenai.
After the monitoring was over we all then went over to the Alaska Zoo, where we had different games and speakers, and everyone got to come together to celebrate in the afternoon session.
All the partners came together. There were different scientific talks and Betty Beluga was there.
To have numerous partners come together and have 17 different sites across Cook Inlet. Getting an accurate one day count for our endangered Cook Inlet Belugas is such an awesome feat, and I’m so thankful that Defenders was able to be a part of it. And in an organizing role this year.
You can learn more about how Defenders is defending this critically endangered Cook Inlet beluga population at defenders.org.
Thanks for watching!
Defenders Of Wildlife works on the ground, in the courts, and on Capitol Hill to protect and restore imperiled wildlife and habitats across North America.
Defenders Of Wildlife
