Belugas sighted in Kenai River — White whales a rare occurrence in recent years

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

Winter’s grip has left the Kenai River, so the spots of white seen bobbing around the river mouth recently aren’t ice. They’re beluga whales.

The National Marine Fisheries Service office in Anchorage and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game office on Kalifornsky Beach Road both have received reports of beluga sightings in the river mouth over the past week, and river watchers say they’ve seen the whales, too.

Barbara Mahoney, a biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service, said she heard a report of about 10 whales sighted April 26, and patrons of Kenai Joe’s on the Kenai bluff said they saw about six of them Thursday evening.

Natasha Ala, executive director of the Kenai Visitors and Cultural Center, who grew up on Strawberry Road, said she saw six to 10 belugas, including two calves, in the river mouth April 21 and 22.

She was down at the Kenai Beach at the end of South Spruce Street as the tide was nearing high.

“They were right there at the mouth of the river, right along shore, and they went out to the middle of the river and swam around,” Ala said.

“That’s the first time in a long time, in like maybe 10 years, I’ve seen them,” she said. “You see them out at Beluga Point in Turnagain Arm and stuff, but this is the first time I’ve seen them in the river and so close to shore.”

Growing up, “We used to see them all the time,” she said. “In the spring they’d come with the hooligan run and go up the river. You’d see them going all the way up to Warren Ames Bridge. It was really common to see them. You’d see them throughout the summer, and in the fall they’d follow the humpies in for the last run of salmon coming up the river.”

Ala worked a summer at the old Wards Cove cannery and remembers seeing pods of a dozen or so belugas going by the dock regularly, but not anymore. She wonders if perhaps boat traffic, dipnetters and all the other river activity in the Kenai as summer fishing picks up deters the belugas from chasing fish into the river like they used to.

On Wednesday, Bob Peters, who lives in Old Town overlooking the river mouth, and his son, Matt, both saw a single beluga.

“There was just one. Matt saw it and I said, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’re hallucinating.’ Then I saw it,” Peters said. “That’s the only time I’ve seen them, and I’ve been kind of keeping an eye out.”

In Peters’ 30 years living on Mission Avenue overlooking the river mouth, beluga sightings went from being commonplace to a rarity. You used to see 50 at a time in the river mouth and farther upstream, Peters said. He’s seen them above the Warren Ames Bridge, around Cunningham Park or so, and has heard of other people seeing them as far up as the bridge in Soldotna, he said.

Peters said his theory is the river makes it easier for the whales to feed, since their feed is corralled in a narrower area than the vast Cook Inlet.

“If they’re not doing too well out say a mile offshore, they come in here because it’s easier to catch fish,” Peters said.

The whales are certainly food-driven, Mahoney said. In spring, belugas often congregate around river mouths, like Eagle River and Beluga River. The Susitna River delta is prime beluga habitat in spring through summer, she said, and pilots have already reported seeing them in the Little Susitna River.

“Now’s the time to see them. This is the time they start hanging out more at the surface,” Mahoney said. In June through October, belugas spend 90 percent of their time at the surface, whereas in winter, they spend 90 percent of their time underwater, she said.

There has also been one report of the whales in Turnagain Arm. That’s a seasonal thing, Mahoney said, with belugas chasing the hooligan run in the arm in the spring, and not generally returning there until the silver salmon run in August.

Tag data shows the whales hang out around Kalgin Island on the west side of Cook Inlet in the winter, but they have been seen in the Kenai year-round. Winter is the last time Peters saw any.

“They sometimes show up in December — don’t ask me why,” he said. “I think the last time I saw them was around Christmastime a couple years ago.”

The best look he’s ever gotten of a beluga came several years before that, and much farther away.

“We went to New York, the Brooklyn Aquarium, and saw two beluga whales in a tank. That was the first time I’d ever really seen them like that,” he said.

In the Kenai, “They’re not very exciting, really. They just make a kind of white bump over the water.”

And they can be hard to spot when not in large numbers, like the single whale Peters and his son saw.

“We made the comment that unless you’re used to looking at them and knew what you’re looking for you never would have seen it,” Peters said.

Still, whale watchers are hopeful they’ll get more opportunities to pick them out.

“Based on the fact that (Saturday) was a record high temperature in Kenai, everyone expects an unusual summer. It may be unusual in the respect that the belugas come back,” Peters said.