Maybe you’ve been lucky enough to encounter Beluga whales in person, or perhaps you’ve seen documentaries that focus on these beautiful cetaceans. Beluga whales are seen with some regularity in places like Hudson Bay, but no one knows much about them, beyond some basics. Now, a team of researchers from Winnipeg is focusing on the whales and their habits.
Beluga Basics
Belugas inhabit Arctic and sub-Arctic waters, and is a close relative of the Narwhal. Though Belugas are usually referred to as whales, it is important to note that they’re actually toothed cetaceans, rather than whales equipped with baleen.
The beluga can grow to be about 5.5 meters long, and can weigh as much as 1,600 kilograms. It has a highly developed sense of hearing, and uses the melon atop its head for echolocation, just as other members of the dolphin and porpoise family do. It has no dorsal fin, and is usually a pure white color.
Belugas tend to form pods averaging ten individuals, however they gather in groups of hundreds to thousands of individuals during the summer months, when they visit shallow coastal areas and estuaries. Their diet varies seasonally and depends partly on location; mostly though, they consume fish, crustaceans, and deep-sea invertebrates.
Worldwide, there are believed to be as many as 150,000 Belugas. Though natives hunted them for centuries, and despite the fact that they were hunted commercially during the 19th and 20th centuries, Belugas are currently protected, with some Eskimo groups being the only people permitted to harvest them. Other threats to Belugas include infectious disease, environmental contamination, and natural predators including Orcas and Polar Bears.
Study Highlights
Oceans North Canada, which is part of the Pew Environment Group, has teamed with Manitoba Conservation and Canada’s Federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans to conduct a three-year study in hopes of increasing knowledge about Belugas and the way they interact with the environment, one another, and other species. During the study, members of the expeditionary group plan to tag Belugas and fit them with minuscule transmitters. They will focus mainly on animals visiting the Nelson, seal, and Churchill Estuaries.
The transmitter each Beluga will carry will provide a data feed to a GPS satellite. This will tell researchers where the whales go when they’re not summering in the estuaries, where they use the bottom sands and churning currents to exfoliate themselves, and where they point themselves into the current while resting motionless as visitors view them from tourist boats.
The team hopes to find out why the Belugas have such strong homing instincts, and also to discover whether individual whales stick to certain locations or visit many different estuaries when they travel south during the summer. They also hope to find out more about which prey species the animals prefer to consume, and they want to find out which habitats are most important to the Belugas, so that those habitats can be targeted for greater protection in the future.
By learning more about Belugas and conserving habitat and food sources, participants will be promoting greater understanding – not just about these magnificent animals, but about the important role they play in the Arctic and sub-Arctic environment.