A tame beluga whale was found swimming with a harness and a GoPro camera holder strapped to it off the Arctic island of Ingoya. The harness had a label tracing it back to St Petersburg, and marine biologist Professor Audun Rikardsen believes the whale could be a Russian spy.
Screenshot of the beluga with the harness
The whale repeatedly swam up to Norwegian boats in the Ingoya area, where a fisherman was able to remove the harness. The Arctic island is some 415km away from Murmansk where Russia’s Northern Fleet, the country’s Navy fleet, is stationed.
Professor Rikardsen said to the BBC that ‘The harness was attached really tightly round its head, in front of its pectoral fins and it had clips.’ There was no camera attached to the GoPro harness.
Beluga whales are native to these parts and are incredibly intelligent animals, and t Russian navy has been known to train and use dolphins for military reasons before.
Govorit Moskva, a Russian broadcaster, interviewed colonel Viktor Baranets who said, “In Sevastopol (in Crimea) we have a centre for military dolphins trained to solve various tasks, from analysing the seabed to protecting a stretch of water, killing foreign divers, attaching mines to the hulls of foreign ships.’
The US navy has also used dolphins for military operations in the past.
Watch to see the beluga swimming near fishing boats below:
Image source: Twitter @ABC
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