Dozens of belugas stranded by extreme Turnagain Arm tides
ANCHORAGE - Four beluga whales have been found dead in Turnagain Arm. Their deaths presumably were caused by Thursday's stranding of 46 whales in extreme low tides near Girdwood, federal biologists said.
Two dead beluga whales washed ashore Friday. Federal officials in airplanes spotted the other dead whales in the water.
Girdwood is about 40 miles southeast of Anchorage.
The group of whales swam out with the high tide Thursday night, said Barbara Mahoney, a biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service.
"There was a lot of movement when the water showed up," she said. "Then they just swam away."
One of the dead belugas washed ashore Friday morning below a Seward Highway pullout north of the site of the stranding.
The second whale floated to the same area about 2 p.m. just as Alaska Native hunters were salvaging the blubber from the first carcass.
Fisheries officials, who have such an agreement with Native groups, said necropsies on internal organs and other body parts were planned to determine the cause of death.
The belugas likely were feeding on silver salmon passing through Cook Inlet when tides went out farther than usual Thursday afternoon, said Mahoney, the agency's beluga whale program coordinator. The whales were unable to get away before they were beached at least a half mile on the flats.
The animals were scattered over a mile area and unreachable because of water channels in the flats.
Mahoney said the whales were stranded for hours before the incoming tide began freeing them at 7:30 p.m. Thursday.
NOAA officials said the prognosis is good for the fate of the rest of the belugas, which are considered a depleted stock in Cook Inlet under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
The whales were stranded on a cool, overcast, drizzly day, far less damaging than hot, dry weather, said Sheela McLean, a NOAA spokeswoman in Juneau.