Action to save stranded whales in the Seine is under way – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries

Police officers and divers from the fire service started this afternoon with a final attempt to save the four-metre long beluga whale from the river. The white whale, which usually stays in Arctic waters, was discovered a week ago on a stray track 130 kilometers from the coast in the French river Seine. Transported by lorry The whale’s health has deteriorated considerably in recent days and, at the latest at the weekend, rescuers expressed little hope of being able to save it. Although the rescue workers have tried to feed the whale both frozen herring and live trout, it refuses to eat. FOOD REFUSAL: Rescue crews have tried to feed the trapped whale, without success. Photo: BENOIT TESSIER / AFP Several attempts to get the whale to turn around have so far been unsuccessful. Now the plan is to hoist the roughly 800-kilogram mammal from the river onto a truck with a cooling system. – The hold will have a suitable temperature and humidity for the whale, so there is no danger that it will suffocate, says local government official Isabelle Dorliat-Pouzet to the AFP news agency. Without anesthesia, Dorliat-Pouzet says the ongoing rescue operation will take time and become complicated. 80 people will help lift the whale into a kind of hammock-like device attached to a crane and into the truck that will transport it to the coast. After a few days of medical treatment, the plan is to lift the whale back into the sea. The whale will be awake during the entire operation, because anesthesia will cause it to stop breathing. – The whale can have internal damage that we cannot see. But this species of whale is a very hardy species, says Isabelle Brasseur from Marineland marine animal park, which contributes to the campaign. More whales on the loose The nearest colony of white whales is outside Svalbard. The animals tend to swim south in autumn when the ice thickens, but rarely as far south as France. The last time a white whale was observed in France was 1948 when a fisherman caught it in a net in the Loire River. In May, an orca was found dead in the Seine between the port city of Le Havre and Rouen. The animal had become stranded in the river and was unable to find its way back to the sea despite help from local authorities.



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