A beluga whale that got stuck in the Seine River in France last week, needed a rescue operation to get back to its habitat. The French news agency reported that the whale has apparently been euthanized since then, due to its serious health condition.
The decision to carry out the rescue mission was made by veterinarians. This is when the mammal, which is four meters long, was taken out of the river and transported in a refrigerated truck with the aim of releasing it into the sea. The rescue forces earlier picked up the whale, which weighs about 800 kg, after reaching a distance of about 100 kilometers from the whales’ whereabouts.
His condition deteriorated and he did not survive. “It is already in our hearts that we announce that our rescue operation was not successful, the beluga did not survive,” was written today (Wednesday) on the Twitter page of the marine mammal conservation group Sea Shepherd France. “We are devastated by this tragic outcome, even though we took into account that it could happen,” they added.
A similar post was published by the authorities in Normandy, western France. Last week, crowds were seen gathering on the banks of the river in Saint-Pierre-le-Grand to watch the rescue, while interest in the whale’s survival spread far beyond France. The experts are still wondering how the poor animal managed to get so far from its natural habitat.
Bale whales occasionally go south, mostly in the fall, but rarely do they swim that far from their location. According to the Pelages Observatory in France, which specializes in marine mammals, the closest beluga population to the area is off the Svalbard Archipelago, north of Norway, 3,000 km from the Seine.
Last May, a killer whale was found dead after swimming up the Seine River in Normandy.