That armor with the text ‘equipment St Petersburg’ on it was removed after his first appearance. Moscow also never responded to Norwegian speculation that the beluga whale could be a spy.
Suddenly swims fast
Spy or not, the Scandinavians have equipped the beluga with GPS, so that they could continue to track it. He also got a name: Hvaldimir. A Norwegian pun, since hval is the Norse word for whale and the leader of Russia has a similar first name.
Anyway, Hvaldimir decided it was time to say goodbye to the Norwegian coast and set course for Sweden. This choice is striking, because it is now very far away from its original habitat. He also suddenly swims very fast, while he moved slowly for years.
Hvaldimir
“We don’t know why that is,” Sebastian Strand, a marine biologist in Norway, told the British newspaper The Guardian. “It could be hormones to find a mate.” Belugas are social animals, and Hvaldimir may not have seen another beluga since 2019.
A problem for Hvaldimir: he can find less food around the coast of Sweden than in the locations where he used to be. The researchers already see in the statistics that he would have lost a bit of weight.
Spitsbergen
Not much going on at the moment, the beluga has been in good condition in recent years. But he probably won’t find friends in Sweden either. The closest population of belugas, according to the researchers, is near Spitsbergen, between Norway’s north coast and the North Pole. So take a swim.
2023-05-29 19:42:07
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