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BELUGA or WHITE WHALE
Delphinapterus leucas
(Pallus, 1776)

DERIVATION: from the Greek delphinos for dolphin, a for without, pteron for fin, and leukos for white.

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Bird-like chirps, whistles, and squeals (listen to them here) – wherever belugas are found, the sea is alive with their sounds. Whalers gave them the name, "Sea Canaries," and this clamor can be heard above the water's surface as well.

Among whales, the all-white belugas have another rare ability: they can turn their head from side to side and look over or under their shoulder. This is possible because of the arrangement of seven vertebrae in their necks which are not fused together as in most cetaceans. Maximum length of 4.5 m and maximum weight of 1,500 kg. There are distinctive size differences between geographically separate populations; males are somewhat larger than females. Belugas live in the Arctic Ocean and prefer coastal waters of North America, northern Europe, and Russia. A large part of their year is spent near the edge of the retreating and advancing ice pack. They usually live in groups of 5 to 10, but as many as 100 belugas have been sighted together.

Belugas, unlike their close relative, the narwhal, are slow swimmers. Their optimum speed is 11 miles per hour, but a white whale routinely moves at half that speed making them easy prey for killer whales.

Their bodies are rotund and taper at both ends. A ridge on their back replaces a dorsal fin. Belugas have small heads with a prominent forehead, whose shape can be changed at will, which enables them to focus their echolocating clicks directionally.

At birth, belugas are slate gray to pinkish brown. As they mature, they become a uniform blue or bluish gray. At sexual maturity, belugas become completely creamy white. They have brown eyes. Sexual maturity occurs between four and seven years for females; between eight and nine years for males. Calves are born every two to three years after a 14 month gestation. Life expectancy is believed to be 24 years.

Even though they have 32 to 40 teeth, they swallow their food whole. Their diet consists of fish, shrimp and octopus. Their small heads have a short but definite beak, overhung with a pronounced melon which freely changes shape. As mentioned above, a beluga, because of its free cervical vertebrae, can move its head as few other whales can.

The usually loquacious belugas become silent when their enemy, killer whales, approach. Their other natural enemy, like the bowhead and narwhal, is ice. When the ice closes, cetaceans are sometimes trapped and starvation or suffocation overtake them. Native hunters in Alaska, Canada and Greenland hunt belugas with rifles and harpoons.

A far greater danger has been extensively researched by Pierre Beland of Quebec, Canada. He has been studying dead belugas for over ten years. Autopsies show 24 different potentially toxic contaminants in their tissues and organs. These toxins come from industrial plants located upriver in the St. Lawrence. Some animals have cancerous tumors and sores and others have suppressed immune systems. The effects of ocean pollution must be addressed if whales and other organisms are to survive.

By: Maris Sidenstecker

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This is an account of beluga hunting sent to us by an Alaska native. For obvious reason, he doesn’t want his identity or location known:

Beluga Hunt in Alaska
A First-Hand Account

Beluga seem smarter than I thought. I recently had a chance to work out here in remote Alaska for a while. I was invited to partake in beluga hunting. Being an Alaskan Native myself and city educated, of the nonrural type, I thought how neat and went along.

Sad. Honestly these little beings travel here in a pod of about an average of 14. I think they are all family in the pod. Well, after one is harpooned and buoyed, it is followed by the boat and followed by its other whale companions. When it slows up and cannot follow the fleeing whales, it starts screaming. I heard it through the hull of our aluminum boat. The other whales turn around and commence to attack the boat.

They butt the boat over and over, some of them getting a good 30 yard run only to run into the boat rocking us all, then seeming to kill themselves for their hurt family member. Well this is what the locals here want, a whole family to die so they can have an easy hunt.

I was told that the population of beluga here has dropped considerably, and that they have always fled the hunt. Only in recent years have they started ramming the boats. They do not seem to care that their own heads bleed after they ram the boat; they continue until they perish. The boats used here are large 30-foot aluminum double-hulled boats. It seems a shame.

The reason I wanted to tell you all this is, I may be Alaska native, but for me it was really sad.
Those little things stick together to the end.

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