Seen apparently alive & well at noon, Hvaldimir was floating dead at 1:00 p.m.
OSLO, Norway––Five years of controversy over what to do about Hvaldimir, the alleged escaped Russian beluga “spy whale,” ended abruptly in mid-day, Norwegian time, on August 31, 2024.
“Unfortunately, we found Hvaldimir floating in the sea,” marine biologist and Marine Mind founder Sebastian Strand told the Norwegian national television network NRK from Ryfylkefjorden, Rogaland, the southwestern fjord that Hvaldimir made his home.
“He has passed away,” Strand said, “but it is not immediately clear what the cause of death is.”
Hvaldimir explored the whole Norwegian coast
Hvaldimir was first seen in April 2019 near Inga, a fishing village of only a few dozen people on the island of Ingøya in Finnmark, off the Norwegian north coast.
Swimming steadily southwest from there, Hvaldimir explored almost the entire Norwegian coast, even visiting Oslo, the Norwegian capital city in the extreme southeast, before settling at Ryfylkefjorden in 2023.
The only injuries visible to Hvaldimir’s carcass, Strand said, were “external damage from birds and such. He was apparently in good condition as of yesterday,” Strand added. “So we just have to figure out what might have happened here.”
“The whale was alive”
A man named Dag Anfindsen told NRK that he observed Hvaldimir from a distance around noon on August 31, 2024, near Risavika.
“Then the whale was alive, diving and underwater for several minutes,” Anfindsen said.
Watching Hvaldimir from the cliffs above, Anfinded realized that the white beluga whale would be hard to distinguish at sea level, amid the high noon glare on the water.
“Anfindsen notified the coast guard,” NRK reported, “so that all small and large vessels in the area should be on the lookout.
“Eventually I saw that Hvaldimir stayed on the surface of the water for a long time. And then came a red pioneer [a sea bird], who circled around Hvaldimir, causing Anfindsen to realize “that Hvaldimir was probably dead,” NRK said.
“I thought he was sleeping at first”
Harald Pedersen, 50, identified by NRK as “foreman of the watch team at Asco in Risavika in Sola,” said he “saw Hvaldimir at 1:00 p.m. I thought he was sleeping at first,” Pedersen said. “I called some friends who are interested in everything. They saw through a telescope that the whale did not appear to be alive.”
Nearby, “Storm Karolius Kristiansen, 16, and his father were out fishing for mackerel in the area when they suddenly spotted something white floating in the water,” NRK continued.
“At first I thought it was a boat that had capsized,” Storm Karolius Kristiansen said, “so me and my father drove over there to check it out. By then there was already a boat with some biologists who had followed the whale.”
“The whale was already dead”
“Around 2:30 p.m., the Stavanger Region Harbor was notified by Kvitsøy VTS that a whale was lying and floating in the water outside Risavika,” NRK reported.
Local maritime coordinator Fredrik Skarbøvik responded immediately, with team members.
“But when their vessel reached Hvaldimir, the whale was already dead,” NRK reported.
“Kristiansen and the others decided that they would move Hvaldimir toward land, to prevent curious people from gathering around the whale and disrupting boat traffic,” NRK summarized.
“They tied a rope around Hvaldimir’s tail and dragged him ashore.”
“We attached some straps to lift the whale from sea to land,” said Skarbøvik.
“I hoisted Hvaldimir up with a crane”
Recounted NRK, “The white whale was lifted out of the water with a crane in Risavika harbor in Sola municipality.
“I hoisted Hvaldimir up with a crane,” Pedersen confirmed. “The marine biologists who follow Hvaldimir were here and had him sent for an autopsy.”
“Hvaldimir was out of the water around 3.15 p.m.,” the NRK said.
“Right now he is lying on a truck,” Skarbøvik told the online newspaper Verdens Gang.
(Facebook photo)
Regina Crosby Haug
California film maker Regina Crosby Haug, 54, a former inlaw of the Bing Crosby family previously best known for a 2009 independent production called Teenage Dirtbag, in July 2024 won permission from the Norwegian government to relocate Hvaldimir 1,400 miles from his wild home in southern Norway back to a closed fjord in Finnmark, ten miles from Russia.
Regina Crosby Haug had reportedly been working on a film about Hvaldimir since 2020, and had formed a U.S.-based nonprofit organization called OneWhale in support of the relocation scheme.
Disregarding that there were multiple witnesses to the immediate circumstances of Hvaldimir’s death, Regina Crosby Haug alleged in multiple social media postings that he was somehow “killed,” blaming opponents of relocation.
(See Why is Norway giving beluga Hvaldimir to “Teenage Dirtbag” film maker?)
“I am devastated & have cried a lot”
“I am devastated and have cried a lot. We have feared this for years,” Regina Crosby Haug told NRK.
“We have been in such a good dialogue with the Directorate of Fisheries regarding the relocation of Hvalidimir,” Regina Crosby Haug lamented. “We had engaged an expert in whale transport, and the plane was already booked. We were so close!”
But the relocation scheme was opposed by many much more experienced marine mammal experts than anyone on her OneWhale team.
(Ric O’Barry Facebook page)
Dolphin Project fought relocation
“Since 2020, Dolphin Project had been attempting to find a solution for Hvaldimir, in order to ensure his safety,” said Canadian volunteer Cara Sands.
“Early on, there were several threats to Hvaldimir’s well-being, including commercial fishing nets, fish farming, and boat propellers.
“Earlier this month,” Sands said via Facebook, “Dolphin Project learned that plans had been put in motion by OneWhale filmmaker Regina Crosby Haug to capture Hvaldimir and transport him to northern Norway, close to the Russian border.”
Dolphin Project founder Ric O’Barry “wrote a strongly-worded blog pleading for these plans to be reconsidered,” Sands recalled.
“Several researchers were also critical of this decision, with over 70 professionals sending complaints to the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries, arguing that the move would be risky for the welfare of the whale.
Ric O’Barry
Said O’Barry on August 8, 2024, “OneWhale’s filmmakers are putting Hvaldimir in serious jeopardy of ending up with the same beluga trainers he once escaped from, and once he enters Russian waters, there is nothing that anyone can do to save him. And let’s just imagine for a moment that Hvaldimir spends some time with wild beluga whales and then dies. No one will even know he is dead.”
Added O’Barry after Hvaldimir died, “Hvaldimir swam into the largest whaling nation in the world, and his life was in danger from that moment on. The government of Norway never offered him any protection, and neither did Prince Haakon, who was contacted by many of our supporters with an urgent appeal to act,” O’Barry continued.
“They just wanted to get rid of him.”
“Authorities left that role up to a few dedicated teams of volunteers. The only action Norwegian authorities took was to issue a permit to capture Hvaldimir and take him dangerously close to the Russian border, where he would most likely never be seen again. I believe they just wanted to get rid of him and not have to even think about him. Out of sight, out of mind.
“The Norwegian people, however, fell in love with this friendly whale, and many told us they had stopped eating whale meat because of him. He was bringing attention to Norwegian whaling, and this is the real reason why authorities refused to help him. Personally, I think they wanted him gone.”
Hvaldimir first came to global notice in April 2019, wrote Guardian reporter Hannah Ellis-Petersen at the time, when “Fishermen in waters near the small Norwegian fishing village of Inga reported that a white beluga whale wearing a strange harness had begun to harass their fishing boats.”
Spy whale? Well, Hvaldimir spy-hopped.
Picked up fellow Guardian reporter Jules Howard, “Upon the body of this whale there was a strap. Upon the fabric of this strap was written a long chain of hieroglyphs – ‘Equipment of St Petersburg,’ the writing said.
Despite much speculation that Hvaldimir was a Russian military espionage whale who was released or escaped, Wikipedia offers that, “Morten Vikeby, a former Norwegian consul in Murmansk, has suggested that Hvaldimir is a therapy animal from a program for disabled children at the Arctic Circle Padi Dive Centre & Lodge, near the Russian–Norwegian border; specifically, he may be Semyon, who was placed with the center while still young after being attacked by sea lions, and was featured in an article Vikeby wrote about the institution in 2008 for the magazine Fiskeribladet.
“The harness was for towing a boat with children inside. That institution no longer uses therapy belugas.”
“The name Hvaldimir,” explained Ine Schwebs of Verdens Gang on August 10, 2024, “is a combination of the Norwegian word for ‘whale’ and the name of Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin.”
Please donate to help support our work:
www.animals24-7.org/donate/
Discover more from Animals 24-7
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
No fekking words. Except I’d have plenty I want to say to the filmmaker…
Though my personal beliefs are that any mutilation is obscene and diabolical, I of course wonder what could have caused Hvaldimir to pass.
Sharing with gratitude and sorrow.