The beluga that was lifted from the Seine River in France has died, despite the mission to save it.
Key points:
- The underweight whale had to be transported in a refrigerated truck to a temporary home in salt water
- After a few days of observation he was going to go out to sea
- The whale weighed about 800 kg but should have weighed much more, about 1,200 kg.
“Despite an unprecedented beluga rescue operation, we are saddened to announce the cetacean’s death,” the prefect of the Calvados department said on Twitter.
Rescuers had removed the whale from the river in preparation for its transfer to a saltwater basin in Normandy.
Veterinarian Ollivet Courtois said that during the rescue operation, the dangerously thin white mammal began to have difficulty breathing, which is why experts decided to euthanize the creature.
The lost beluga was first spotted in the French river, far from its arctic habitat, last week and had swum almost halfway to Paris before local authorities confined it in a large lock system.
Earlier on Wednesday, conservation group Sea Shepherd France said the whale had no digestive activity for unknown reasons.
Veterinary examinations were done after the beluga was removed from the water after about six hours of preparation.
The group said the beluga was a male with no infectious diseases and there were plans to try to re-stimulate the marine mammal’s digestion.
Conservationists have tried unsuccessfully since Friday to feed fish to the beluga.
Whale to travel in refrigerated truck
The whale was swimming towards Paris when authorities locked it in this lock. (AP: Aurelien Morissard)
A veterinary team planned to transport the 4-metre-long whale to a coastal point in the French port city of Ouistreham, in northeastern France, for “a period of care”, according to Lamya Essemlali, president of Sea Shepherd france
The delicate transport had to be done with a refrigerated truck for the route of approximately 160 kilometers.
Authorities planned to keep the whale in its temporary saltwater home for two to three days of monitoring and treatment before towing it out to sea.
However, the authorities had admitted that the move carried its own risk of mortality due to the stress on the animal, however, the whale could not survive much longer in the fresh water of the Seine.
In the last few days he was given a cocktail of antibiotics and vitamins and rubbed against the wall of the lock to remove the spots that had appeared on his back.
“Horribly thin for a beluga”
The whale weighed about 800 kilos, but should have weighed about 400 kilos more.
“Veterinarians are not necessarily optimistic about the health of the beluga,” Isabelle Dorliat-Pouzet, secretary general of the Eure prefecture, told BFM TV shortly after the whale was lifted from the water.
“It’s horribly thin for a beluga and that doesn’t bode well for its medium-term life expectancy.”
At the end of May, a seriously ill killer whale swam tens of kilometers up the Seine and died of natural causes after attempts to return it to the sea failed.
In September 2018, a beluga named Benny was seen for a few days in the River Thames near Gravesend, east London, in what was then the most southerly sighting of a beluga on British shores.
ABC/Wires