France: The rescue operation of the beluga whale stuck in the Seine river is in progress
A dozen veterinarians and whale experts were waiting for a barge to treat the whale, which was underweight after being loaded out of the water in a sort of enormous hammock.
About 80 people are involved in the rescue operation, including divers and police officers
news agencies
10/08/2022
Wednesday, August 10, 2022, 09:24 Updated: 09:42
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The beluga whale stranded in the Seine River in France has been pulled out of the water in the first phase of an ambitious rescue operation.
The four-meter-long whale, a protected species that lives in the frozen waters of the Arctic, had been in the river northwest of Paris for more than a week.
A dozen veterinarians and whale experts were waiting for a barge to treat the whale, which was underweight after being loaded out of the water in a sort of enormous hammock.
About 80 people are involved in the rescue operation, including divers and police officers.
The rescue team spent six hours overnight lifting the sick 800kg whale out of the water and onto a barge.
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The rescue team is waiting on the bank of the river (Photo: Reuters)
The crew transferred the whale to a refrigerated truck that would take it back to shore.
They hope to treat him for a few days before releasing him back into the open sea.
"It's a long rescue operation, very technical, which requires a lot of skills," said Isabelle Dorlier-Pose, secretary general of the district.
"There are many problems that we cannot foresee," said an expert from the Marineland water park in southern France. But she added that beluga whales They are an “extremely hardy species.”
People gathered on the banks of the river at Saint-Pierre-le-Grand in Normandy to watch the operation – as the story of the whale's survival spread around the world.
The beluga whale (Photo: Reuters)
The rescue team prepares (Photo: Reuters)
The rescue team had earlier tried to feed the whale frozen and live fish to whet its appetite and help it make the long journey back down the river to the English Channel and out to sea, but it refused to eat.
Whales sometimes sail south in the fall to feed before the ice forms, but it is rare for them to move so far from their natural habitat.
According to the Pelagis Sea Observatory, which specializes in sea mammals, the nearest beluga population is on the Svalbard Peninsula, north of Norway, 3,000 km from the Seine River.
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