Two animal rights organizations suspect that the friendly and popular white whale known as Hvaldimir, who swam into Norwegian waters five years ago, was intentionally shot and killed over the weekend. They have filed charges in a bid to launch a police investigation.
“Hvaldimir was a special whale that many had become so fond of,” wrote NOAH, the Oslo-based animal rights group that has joined the organization OneWhale in calling for a criminal probe. “Many people have worked hard to make sure Hvaldimir was well taken care of, so many are now in despair over his death. NOAH thinks it’s our responsibility to find out what happened, so we and OneWhale have chosen to report this to the police.”
A father and son who were out fishing on Saturday were among the first to spot the whale floating in the sea. “I thought it was a boat that had overturned,” 16-year-old Storm Karolius Kristiansen told state broadcaster NRK, “so my father and I steered our boat over to check it out.” Marine biologists including researcher Sebastian Strand of the organization Marine Mind, which has been following the whale, were already there and together they decided to tow Hvaldimir towards land.
“I was shocked, I’d never seen a whale off Tananger,” Kristiansen said. It also rapidly became clear that the dead whale was Hvaldimir, who’d become a national celebrity since he first started following a Norwegian fishing boat off Northern Norway in 2019 and then appeared in various harbours along the coast of Finnmark and Troms.
The friendly whale was quickly dubbed Hvaldimir since “hval” is the Norwegian word for whale and he’s believed to have escaped or been released from captivity in Russia. He also appeared three years before Russian President Vladimir Putin became an object of international scorn after ordering the invasion of Ukraine. While some suspected the whale had been trained for underwater spying or military exercises, he captured the hearts of many both in Norway and abroad.
Kristiansen, his father and the others managed to fasten a rope around the whale and tow him in. Hvaldimir was eventually hoisted out of the water at the nearby Risavika harbour.
Strand confirmed to NRK that he and his colleagues had “unfortunately found Hvaldimir floating in the sea. He had died, but it wasn’t immediately clear what the cause of death was.” They were also shocked because they’d observed the whale just the day before and he seemed to be fine. “This is gruesome,” Strand said, “so we have to find out what’s happened here.”
Another whale watcher, Dag Andfindsen, told NRK he’d seen Hvaldimir alive and diving just an hour before he suddenly was floating on the water for an unusually long time. Then birds started circling around the whale, harbour authorities were alerted and they joined the effort to tow Hvaldimir in.
Now, based on visible injuries found on the whale, and blood seen seeping from two wounds that look like bullet holes, alarms are ringing that the whale was deliberately killed. His carcass has been sent to Norway’s veterinarian institute for autopsy, given all the questions over cause of death. A popular walrus was controversially shot by state authorities two years ago, but no such order is known to have been issued in connection with the whale.
“He was healthy and had no sign of disease,” said Regina Crosby Haug, leader of the volunteer organization OneWhale that has teamed with NOAH to file police charges. She told local newspaper Stavanger Aftenblad that she does not think the whale died of natural causes. He was believed to be around 15 years old and there had even been plans to move him farther north where he’d be more likely to join other white beluga whales like himself.
At first Haug thought he may have been hit by a boat, since he often attracted spectators when he’d pop out of the water from Finnmark in the north to as far south as the Lysefjord in Denmark. Now the organizations view his injuries as more sinister. Police confirmed they’ve been asked to investigate but told NRK they will wait until the results of the autopsy are available.
NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund
