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MONTREAL — The threatened belugas of the St. Lawrence have failed to grow in number despite decades of protection efforts, fuelling worry among scientists who fear for the animals' survival.
The pearly white whales, known as the canaries of the sea for their whistled song, were the object of international alarm in the 1980s when they were brought to the edge of extinction.
According to new estimates, the beluga population at the time had dipped to 1,100 - the same number that survives today.
"The beluga population isn't growing, and it's cause for concern. We don't like to see a species disappear," said biologist Véronique Lesage, a beluga specialist at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
"If a population is stable at six million, it isn't serious," Dr. Lesage said in an interview yesterday. "But when it's stable at 1,000 and it's been that way for 20 years and it's confined to the St. Lawrence estuary, then the population is vulnerable to all sorts of catastrophes."
Scientists say the reason for the whale population's stagnation remains a mystery, but pollution and human harassment remain leading possibilities.
A study led by Quebec researcher Michel Lebeuf, published in the September issue of the journal Science of the Total Environment, found that contaminants such as DDT and PCBs had decreased slightly in the St. Lawrence belugas after years of pollution controls.
But Dr. Lebeuf, an environmental chemist at the federal Fisheries Department, has also discovered non-controlled chemicals such as polybrominated diphenyl ethers, widely used as flame retardants, in St. Lawrence belugas. Their toxic presence in the animals has grown substantially.
"I believe the contamination of belugas is probably more significant today than it was in the past," said Dr. Lebeuf, who works along with Dr. Lesage at the Maurice Lamontagne Institute. "It certainly hasn't improved."
Experts say they continue making startling discoveries about the beguiling mammals. New analysis this year indicates belugas live twice as long - up to 80 years or more - as had previously been believed. Their longevity may explain why long-standing pollutants still remain in their bodies.
And it means a relatively young beluga may be afflicted by pollutants in its body because it was weaned by its contaminated mother, "who is older than we thought," Dr. Lebeuf said.
When protective measures were launched in the 1980s, scientists optimistically expected the beluga population to grow at a rate of 3 per cent a year. "We expected the population to regenerate and grow substantially," Dr. Lebeuf said. "Yet the population today isn't showing signs of growth. That worries us."
Human harassment of belugas, which have been the object of fascination since P. T. Barnum captured them for display in 1861, remains a problem. In an attempt to curtail the effects of tourism on the whales, federal regulations in 2002 forbade viewing belugas at closer than 400 metres.
However, individual boaters at the popular Saguenay St. Lawrence Marine Park routinely breach the rule, said Jean Desaulniers, the park's manager of research conservation. He said he's seen pleasure crafters plow directly into groups of belugas.
"Some people either don't want to know the rules or couldn't care less, or say to themselves, 'I just want to see the belugas,' " Mr. Desaulniers said. "It happens regularly."
On July 21 this year, a sailboat approached to within 200 metres of a beluga, and kept circling near the whale to stay close by. "A lot of people don't respect the distances," he said.
Exacerbating the problem is a dispute this year over arming federal park wardens, which has left no one on site to enforce regulations. Even last year, when the wardens were applying the law, only seven violations were issued to scofflaw boaters, Mr. Desaulniers said.
He said the department still favours education.
"There are people who don't have the kind of environmental consciousness we'd like," Mr. Desaulniers said.
Year after year, an average of 15 beluga carcasses wash up on the shores of the St. Lawrence, where some are recovered and taken to laboratories for analysis to determine the cause of death.
Canada shifted the beluga's status from "endangered" to the less serious "threatened" in 2004.
