Beluga whales face multiple stressors from climate change, noise pollution, and contaminant exposure that affect individual health and welfare across Arctic and subarctic populations.
Individual belugas living in polluted estuaries experience chronic immune compromise causing susceptibility to opportunistic infections. Acoustic masking from ship noise disrupts the complex social communication that is central to beluga society. Climate-driven sea ice loss is changing beluga migration timing and prey availability in ways that cause nutritional stress. The St. Lawrence population shows high rates of cancer and infection likely attributable to contaminant burden. These cumulative stressors represent welfare harm at the individual level even when populations are not considered critically endangered.