Beluga Whales Up-Close Tour
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Beluga Whales Up Close Tour FAQs
Fifteen minutes before your scheduled tour, you'll meet your guide at the base of the Sky Tour at the Tour Welcome Center. There, your guide will explain the safety rules and requirements of the experience. When everyone is ready, the guide will take you and any other tour participants to meet our resident beluga whales at Wild Arctic.
You’ll learn a lot about belugas during this guided whale encounter, where you get a chance to feed the whales a snack in our beluga whale habitat. You can upgrade to our Animal Experience Add-On Package to get a photo and stuffed plushie to take home and book additional Up-Close Animal Experiences.
Yes, our whale encounters take place in a completely controlled environment. Our seasoned animal care specialists lead all encounters to ensure a fun, safe, and educational experience.
Beluga Whale FAQs
Belugas love to eat and aren’t picky about the type of seafood they graze, and they’ll eat fish, crabs, shrimp, octopus, and squid. You’ll have an opportunity to hand out snacks during your up-close whale encounter.
As you’ll learn during one of our beluga whale experiences, belugas are extremely curious and friendly. However, it’s not advised to approach or interact with these animals outside of a controlled whale habitat, and that’s because beluga whale mothers can be very defensive of their young.
While not all beluga whale populations are considered endangered, specific populations of beluga whales that are unique are considered critically endangered. This includes the 289 beluga whales remaining off the shore of Cook Inlet in Alaska.
Sadly, beluga whale habitats have decreased over the years. The places where they look for food are overfished, and their breeding grounds have become polluted. Belugas also suffer from underwater sound pollution that drives them away from their favorite spots and into more dangerous waters.
Beluga whales in the wild can live up to 50 to 60 years or even longer, and some biologists now think there may be beluga whales as much as 90 years old. Until recently, scientists thought beluga whales lived only 30 to 35 years.
Beluga whales aren’t dolphins but aren’t “true whales” either. Belugas are “toothed whales,” of which there are only two species today (the other toothed whale is the narwhal.) Dolphin obsessed? Don’t miss our Dolphins Up-Close Tour.
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