French officials are working on a delicate plan to transport a beluga whale back to sea after it swam far up the Seine towards Paris and put its life in danger, a marine expert said Tuesday.
The four-metre-long whale was spotted a week ago and appears to be ill and underweight, but its condition is “satisfactory,” Isabelle Brasseur of Marineland marine animal park in southern France, the largest in Europe, told AFP.
“As of this morning we have an idea of something that might work, we’re going to explain and refine it with the people who are going to help us,” she said.
Belugas are a protected species that cannot survive long in fresh water.
This is currently around 130 kilometers (80 miles) inland from the English Channel at Saint-Pierre-La-Garenne in Normandy.
“The extraordinary thing is that the banks of the Seine are not accessible to vehicles here…everything has to be done by hand,” Brasseur said.
It’s stuck behind a lock and unable to move further inland – it’s now about 80 kilometers from the French capital – but isn’t turning around, and officials warn that attempts to ‘nudge’ the beluga back to sea are not feasible.
The idea is to take the beluga by road to an undisclosed seawater tank where it can be treated before being released.
But the challenges are significant and the journey will likely continue to tax an animal weighing 800 kilograms (nearly 1,800 pounds).
The NGO Sea Shepherd France, which supports the operation, said in a statement Tuesday that reassurance was not an option because belugas are so-called “voluntary breathers” who need to be awake to breathe air.
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“Definitely we need to get it out of there … and try to figure out what’s wrong,” Brasseur said.
Veterinarians will provide constant monitoring during the move.
“There may be internal issues that we can’t see,” she said, although belugas are “extremely hardy” as a species.
Sea Shepherd has called for donations of heavy-duty rope, nets, mattresses and other equipment.
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.
According to the French Pelagis Observatory, which specializes in marine mammals, the closest beluga population is off the Svalbard archipelago north of Norway, 3,000 kilometers from the Seine.
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