People should “avoid contact” with a famous beluga whale to avoid accidentally injuring or killing it, Norway’s Directorate of Fisheries said.
The whale, nicknamed Hvaldimir, gained international fame in 2019 after it was spotted wearing a specially made collar with camera mounts, leading experts to believe the whale may have been trained by the Russian military.
Since 2019, he has been “travelling along the Norwegian coast” with a few stops along the way, according to the management, who added that Hvaldimir “usually stays on farms where he has been able to catch fish, feeding on surplus feed.”
Hvaldimir is known for following boats and playing with those aboard.
The whale, which is a protected species in Norway, now lives inland in the Oslofjord, the board said.
This “means that it has arrived in a very densely populated area and the risk that the whale could be injured due to human contact has become significantly higher,” he added.
In a statement on Wednesday, Director of Fisheries Frank Bakke-Jensen said that “so far there have only been minor incidents where the whale has suffered minor injuries, mainly from contact with boats.”
But he urged people to keep their distance, “even if the whale is tame and used to being around people.”
“We especially encourage people on boats to keep a good distance to avoid the whale being injured or, in the worst case, killed by boat traffic,” said Bakke-Jensen.
Given the dangers, Bakke-Jensen was asked if the whale should be placed in captivity.
“We have always communicated that the whale in question is a free-living animal and we see no reason to capture it and put it behind barriers,” he said.
However, now that the whale is “in a more vulnerable area and access to food may be limited, we will consider other measures,” added Bakke-Jensen. “But it’s still too early to say anything concrete about that.”
The Directorate of Fisheries will monitor the whale’s movements in the hope that it will turn around when it reaches the end of the Oslofjord.
In 2019, experts told the CNN that Hvaldimir was a trained animal and evidence suggested that he came from Russia.
Jorgen Ree Wiig, a marine biologist at the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries, told CNN that the harness looked “specially made” and had “mounts for GoPro cameras on each side”.
And the clips on the harness read “Equipment St. Petersburg”, contributing to the theory that the whale came from Murmansk, Russia, and was trained by the Russian navy.
The navy “is known for training belugas to conduct military operations before,” Wiig said, “like protecting naval bases, helping divers, finding lost equipment.”
Source: CNN Brasil
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