Members of the OneWhale organization have confirmed the sighting on the Swedish coast, in the last two weeks, of the beluga known by the name of Hvaldimir, famous since 2019 for wearing a harness with an inscription from Russia that initially suggested that it could be a cetacean trained or participating in Russian espionage operations.
The name assigned in Norway, where she was first seen with the suspicious pendant, is a pun combining the Norwegian name for a whale, hval) and the well-known Russian given name, Vladimir.
This specimen of beluga (odontocete cetacean with scientific name Delphinapterus leucas) was observed in May of this year first in the Oslo fjord and last Sunday further south, in the North Sea, in Hunnebostrand, on the Swedish west coast, according to data provided by Sebastian Strand, from the OneWhale organization, created precisely for the study and protection of Hvaldimir.
After spending three years slowly descending from northern Norway, it has been heading south in recent months, for some reason that experts have not yet been able to clarify.
"We don't know why it is moving so fast at the moment," especially because "it is moving away from its natural environment," Sebastian Strand said in statements released by AFP. "It could be the hormones that push you to find a mate. Or loneliness: belugas are very social, so it could be looking for others."
Estimated to be between 13 and 14 years old, Hvaldimir was sighted in April 2019 off the arctic region of Finnmark in the far north of Norway. The biologists who had approached her had managed to remove the harness fixed around her head. The harness was fitted with a base for a small camera, with "Equipment St. Peterburg" printed in English on the plastic straps.
The Norwegian Directorate General of Fisheries then speculated that Hvaldimir might have escaped from an enclosure and been trained by the Russian navy, as she seems accustomed to human company and tends to get close to ships. Moscow has never officially commented on these speculations.
The use of these marine mammals for military purposes is nothing new. In the 1960s, dolphins were trained by the US military to defend against submarine attacks. With their sonar, the most powerful in the world, they are capable of detecting objects hundreds of meters away, mines or divers trying to sabotage Russian ships, for example. A similar program was launched in the USSR in the 1980s. In the spring of 2022, the US Naval Institute reported the presence of dolphin cages in the port of Sevastopol, where a large part of the Russian fleet is based. .
Beluga whales traditionally live much further north, near Greenland, or in Russian or Norwegian Arctic waters. The Barents Sea and the North Atlantic are strategic areas for the Western and Russian navies, as they are the regular contact area for their submarines. According to Sebastian Strand, Hvaldimir appears to have been in good health in recent years, feeding on fish attracted to Norway's large salmon farms. But OneWhale is concerned about his ability to find food where he is, saying that she has already detected signs of weight loss.
