‘Russian spy’ whale Hvaldimir shot dead: animal rights groups

Animal rights groups said a beluga whale was killed by gunfire. The whale became famous in Norway after its unusual harness raised suspicions the animal had been trained by Russia as a spy.

The organizations NOAH and OneWhale said they had filed a complaint with Norwegian police and asked them to launch a criminal investigation into the animal’s death.

The beluga, nicknamed Hvaldimir, rose to fame in 2019 after he was seen at sea wearing a specially adapted harness with mounts for a camera, raising fears that the animal may have been trained by the Russian military to gather intelligence.

Hvaldimir, a celebrity in Norway, was found dead in a bay on the country’s southwest coast on Saturday. His body was taken to a local branch of the Norwegian Veterinary Institute on Monday for an autopsy. A report on Hvaldimir’s death is expected “within three weeks,” a spokeswoman for the institute said.

NOAH and OneWhale called for a criminal investigation to be launched “based on compelling evidence that the whale was killed by gunshot wounds.”

In an Instagram post on Wednesday, OneWhale – whose mission is to “protect one whale, Hvaldimir, so we can protect many” – said that “several veterinarians, biologists and ballistics experts have reviewed the evidence of Hvaldimir’s injuries and determined that the whale’s death was the result of a criminal act.”

“The whale’s injuries are alarming and of a nature that cannot rule out a criminal act – it is shocking,” NOAH Director Siri Martinsen said in a statement. “Given the suspicion of a criminal act, it is vital that the police are quickly involved,” she said.

Police confirmed that they had received a report into Hvaldimir’s death and said they would review the case “to determine whether there are reasonable grounds to initiate an investigation.”

The Norwegian Veterinary Institute told AFP news agency that police would be informed “if the autopsy reveals anything suspicious.”

Estimated to be between 15 and 20 years old, Hvaldimir was relatively young for a beluga whale, which typically lives to be 30 to 35 years old, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

In 2019, the hypothesis that Hvaldimir was a “spy whale” received new fuel when he was discovered at a strategic location in the Barents Sea, a hotbed of East-West rivalry during the Cold War.

Moscow’s most powerful naval fleet is stationed in the Barents Sea, and Russia and the West continue to monitor the movements of their respective submarines in the region.