French authorities on Saturday planned to give vitamins to a beluga whale swimming up the Seine as they raced to save the malnourished whale, refusing food.
The apparently underweight whale was first sighted on Tuesday in the river that flows through Paris into the English Channel. On Saturday it had penetrated to around 70 kilometers north of the French capital.
“It’s quite emaciated and seems to be having trouble eating,” Isabelle Dorliat-Pouzet, a senior police officer in the department of Eure in Normandy overseeing the rescue operation, said at a news conference.
Rescuers had tried feeding it frozen herring and then live trout, but it didn’t seem to accept either, she said.
It’s hoped that injecting the animal with vitamins will stimulate its appetite, she said.
Authorities are deciding whether to keep the animal in the waterway to allow it to regain its appetite or to head it back to the sea, she said, adding that no decision has been made yet.
She said small spots appeared on his pale skin, but scientists have not yet determined whether this is a natural process due to the fresh water or signs of health problems.
On Friday, Gerard Mauger of the GECC Marine Conversation Society told AFP that while it’s a very sociable mammal, “it’s acting the same as yesterday, it seems very shy. It only briefly rises to the surface, followed by long dives.”
Based on sonar recordings, it also emitted very few of the chirps and quinces the whales are known for, raising further concerns about the animal’s health.
– Rare sighting –
Belugas are typically found only in cold arctic waters, and although they migrate south in the fall to forage as ice molds, they rarely venture that far.
An adult can grow up to four meters long.
It is only the second documented sighting of a belugas in a French river since 1948, when a fisherman found one in his nets in the Loire Estuary.
The sighting comes just months after a killer whale – also known as an orca but technically part of the dolphin family – was stranded in the Seine River and later found dead between Le Havre and Rouen in late May.
An autopsy found the more than four-meter-long animal was likely exhausted after being unable to feed, although officials said they also discovered a bullet lodged in the base of the skull – although it was far from it was clear that the wound played a role in his death.
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