(Stockholm) The beluga Hvaldimir, discovered four years ago wearing a strange harness earning him suspicions of having been used by the Russian navy, is currently on the west coast of Sweden, according to an NGO which follows its displacements.
Spotted for the first time in the waters of the Norwegian Arctic in 2019, the name of this white cetacean of several meters comes from a pun associating the word whale (hval, in Norwegian), and the emblematic Russian first name.
After being spotted in the Oslo fjord in recent days, it was observed on Sunday further south in the North Sea, at Hunnebostrand, on the Swedish west coast, Sebastian Strand of the organization OneWhale told AFP. .
After spending three years slowly descending from northern Norway, he has been heading south in recent months, for some unexplained reason.
“We don’t know why it is moving so fast at the moment”, especially since “it is moving away from its natural environment”, underlined the marine biologist.
“It could be the hormones pushing him to find a mate. Or loneliness, belugas being very social, he could be looking for others”.
An estimated 13 to 14 years old, “Hvaldimir” was spotted in April 2019 off the Arctic region of Finnmark, in the Far North of Norway.
The biologists who had approached him had managed to remove the harness fixed around his head.
This was equipped with a base for a small camera, with the text “Equipment St. Peterburg” printed in English on the plastic straps.
The Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries speculated at the time that Hvaldimir had escaped from a pen, and had been dragged away by the Russian Navy, as he seemed accustomed to human company and had a tendency to approach ships.
Moscow has never officially commented on the speculation.
Beluga whales traditionally live much further north, near Greenland, or in the waters of the Russian or Norwegian Arctic.
The Barents Sea and the North Atlantic are strategic areas for Western and Russian navies, a usual contact zone for their submarines.
According to Strand, Hvaldimir appears healthy in recent years, feeding on fish attracted to large farmed salmon farms in Norway.
But OneWhale is worried that he will be able to find food where he is, saying he has already identified signs of weight loss.