Beluga whale with Russian harness raises alarm

A beluga whale found with a tight harness thatappeared to be Russian made has raised the alarm of Norwegian officials and prompted speculation that the animal may have comefrom a Russian military facility.

Joergen Ree Wiig of the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries says"Equipment St. Petersburg" is written on the harness strap, whichfeatures a mount for an action camera.

He said Monday fishermen in Arctic Norway last week reported thetame white cetacean with a tight harness swimming around. On Friday,fisherman Joar Hesten, aided byRee Wiig, jumped into the frigidwater to remove the harness.

Ree Wiig said "people in Norway's military have shown greatinterest" in the harness.

Audun Rikardsen, a professor at the Department of Arctic andMarine Biology at the Arctic University of Norway in Tromsoe,northern Norway, believes "it is most likely that Russian Navy in Murmansk" is involved. Russia has major military facilities in and around Murmansk on the Kola Peninsula, in the far northwest of Russia.

It wasn't immediately clear what the mammal was being trainedfor, or whether it was supposed to be part of any Russian militaryactivity in the region.

Rikardsen said he had checked with scholars in Russia and Norwayand said they have not reported any program or experiments usingbeluga whales.

"This is a tame animal that is used to get food served, so thatis why it has made contacts with the fishermen," he said.

"Thequestion is now whether it can survive by finding food by itself. Wehave seen cases where other whales that have been in Russiancaptivity doing fine."

Hesten told Norwegian broadcaster NRK that the whale began to rubitself against his boat when he first spotted it.

Dolphin training

Russia does not have a history of using whales for military purposes but the Soviet Union had a full-fledged training program for dolphins.

The Soviet Union used a base in Sevastopol on the Crimeanpeninsula during the Cold War to train the mammals for militarypurposes such as searching for mines or other objects and plantingexplosives.

The facility in Crimea was closed following the collapseof the Soviet Union, though unnamed reports shortly after the Russian annexation of Crimea indicated that it had reopened.

The Russian Defence Ministry published a public tender in 2016 topurchase five dolphins for a training program. The tender did notexplain what tasks the dolphins were supposed to perform, butindicated they were supposed to have good teeth. It was taken offline shortly after publication.