The last chance operation to save the beluga was in vain: the cetacean, lost in an alarming state of health in the Seine, a river in northwestern France, had to be euthanized on Wednesday after arriving in a truck on the coast, where experts hoped to treat him.
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The four-meter-long cetacean, usually living in cold waters and whose presence in France is extremely rare, had been spotted on August 2 in the hot and stagnant water of a lock in the Seine, about 160 kilometers from the mouth of the river in the Channel Sea.
His situation had moved beyond the French borders.
During an unprecedented rescue operation, the animal weighing around 800 kilos was placed in the back of a refrigerated truck on Wednesday around 04:00 (02:00 GMT), after six hours of efforts to extract it from the lock. from Saint-Pierre-la-Garenne, 70 kilometers northwest of Paris, where he had failed.
Its survival was compromised in unsalted water at 25 degrees Celsius, with “elements of pollution or noise incompatible with its survival”, underlined the veterinarian of the emergency services, Florence Ollivet-Courtois.
“Great Weakness”
Upon arrival at 10:30 a.m. in Ouistreham, a town on the Channel coast in northwestern France, the beluga was examined by veterinarians before a possible transfer to a lock and then potentially to the sea, explained the prefecture.
“Despite the technical and logistical means implemented, the condition of the cetacean unfortunately deteriorated during the trip,” added the prefecture.
“Veterinary expertise revealed the situation of great weakness and failing respiratory activity of the beluga. The decision was therefore taken collectively, with the veterinarians, to euthanize him”.
Florence Ollivet-Courtois explained on Twitter that “the animal was in anoxia (a decrease in the quantity of oxygen, Editor’s note), so it was not ventilating enough, and therefore the suffering was obvious for this animal”.
“It was because his condition deteriorated during the trip that we decided to interrupt the destination of the lock, to proceed to euthanasia. This animal had an insufficient muscular condition to breathe properly (…). We considered that his condition was not compatible with a release” in the Ouistreham lock, she added.
The autopsy of the marine animal will be “very important”, underlined Mrs. Ollivet-Courtois after this death which is added to that of an orca found dead in May in the Seine.
24 divers
The ocean defense NGO Sea Shepherd stressed that such an operation was “essential to give an otherwise doomed animal a chance”.
As of Tuesday evening, more than a hundred people had participated in this unprecedented rescue operation in France.
The 24 divers involved and the rescuers handling the ropes around the lock had to try several times, between 10:00 p.m. and 4:00 a.m., to lure the animal into the nets and the structure capable of lifting it out of the water, noted AFP journalists.
The cetacean, whose state of health had been deemed “alarming”, had ended up being lifted in a net towed by a crane and placed on a barge, where he was immediately taken care of by a dozen veterinarians dressed in overalls. white.
The beluga was then placed in a refrigerated truck which left the lock shortly after 07:30 (05:30 GMT), at low speed, to travel the 160 kilometers to Ouistreham.
A basin of seawater, in a lock in the port, had been made available to receive the animal, which was to remain there for three days before being put back at sea, if its state of health permitted.
According to the Pelagis observatory, which specializes in marine mammals, the beluga whale normally lives in arctic and subarctic waters.
It is, according to these experts, the second beluga known in France after a fisherman from the Loire estuary had brought one up in his nets in 1948.