The beluga’s last location was in Courcelles-sur-Seine, between the cities of Rouen and Paris.
French authorities and NGOs across the country have mobilized since this Friday to help a beluga whale, a protected species of cetacean that usually lives in cold waters, which was detected in the Seine.
On Friday the marine mammal was between two locks halfway between Paris and the Norman port of Le Havre, where the Seine empties.
The French authorities have launched an appeal to prudence and they asked “the whole population not to try to approach or come into contact with the animal”.
The aerial shot was carried out with drones in Saint-Pierre-la-Garenne, west of Paris. Photo: AP
“Even approaching very carefully is difficult because it makes a lot of changes of direction,” he explained. Gerard Maugervice president of the Cotentin Cetacean Study Group (GEEC).
The beluga on Friday had “the same behavior as yesterday, it is very slippery, it makes very brief appearances on the surface, followed by long apneas “, added the association manager.
Dinner, “very polluted” and “very noisy” due to large expeditions, it is “not very welcoming” to cetaceans that are sensitive to noise, says the Sea Shepherd association.
Sea Shepherd members and French firefighters patrol the waters of the Seine to find the white beluga whale. Photo: AFP
The day before, the health of the beluga, which measures 4 meters in adulthoodit was considered “worrying” by the prefecture of Eure, the department of northwestern France where the animal was found.
In May, a killer whale found itself in trouble in the Seine. Operations to try to save her and her pet have failed eventually he died of hunger.
The autopsy, a ‘post mortem’ examination performed on an animal, confirmed the “precarious physical condition” of the orca, an “immature” female of over four meters and 1,100 kg, and allowed you discover a bullet lodged in the base of the skull of the mammal.
The Seine’s wide reach makes it difficult for rescuers to locate the lost beluga. Photo: AFP
Despite having state-of-the-art drones and technology, the beluga whale lost in the Seine River permanently misleads rescuers. Photo: AFP
This sad outcome “is what we want to avoid with the beluga, for us it is necessary to quickly do a DNA test to discover its origin and carry out a repatriation,” the president of Sea Shepherd told AFP. Lamya Essemlali.
According to the Pelagis Observatory, a specialist in marine mammals, it is the second beluga discovered in France after a fisherman from the Loire estuary (center) inadvertently caught one in his nets in 1948.
Source: Clarin
