(Oslo) There is no evidence that the beluga found dead in Norway at the end of August, a cetacean the subject of all fantasies, including suspicions of espionage, was shot dead, Norwegian police announced on Monday, contrary to what two NGOs were saying.
Animal rights groups NOAH and One Whale filed a complaint last week, claiming that the beluga whale named Hvaldimir, which has caused a sensation in Norway since its appearance in 2019, had been shot and killed.
Described as young – between 15 and 20 years old, according to those who followed him – and in good health, the mammal was found dead on August 31 in Risavika Bay, on the southwest coast of Norway. Belugas generally live between 30 and 35 years, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
Based on a preliminary autopsy report by the Norwegian Veterinary Institute, police said there was no indication that the death was caused by “human activity”, suggesting instead that the beluga died of starvation.
“There are no autopsy results that indicate that Hvaldimir was shot,” police official Amund Preede Revheim said in a statement.
Police report “completely superficial” injuries.
“One of the wounds is a little deeper, but this damage did not affect vital organs and is not life-threatening in nature,” she said.
Police did not provide the cause of Hvaldimir’s death but said a stick 35 centimetres long and 3 centimetres thick had become lodged in the whale’s mouth.
“The autopsy revealed that his stomach was empty. In addition, most of the organs had degraded,” added Amund Preede Revheim.
One Whale leader Regina Crosby Haug told AFP last Wednesday that there were “multiple gunshot wounds” on the cetacean’s body when she said goodbye to it at the Veterinary Institute.
The two NGOs also published photos showing what appeared to be holes in the body, which also showed streaks of blood.
The mammal appeared in 2019 off the coast of Hammerfest in the Norwegian Arctic. It was wearing an enigmatic harness around its head with a base for a small camera, with the text “Equipment St. Peterburg” printed in English, and seemed to enjoy human company.
This gave rise to speculation that it was a spy animal from neighbouring Russia, leading to its being named Hvaldimir, a play on words combining the Norwegian word for whale (hval) and the emblematic Russian first name of the Kremlin’s ruler, Vladimir Putin.
Moscow has never officially commented on these speculations.
Belugas traditionally live much further north, near Greenland, or in the waters of the Russian or Norwegian Arctic.