Conservation

Hvaldimir post-mortem confirms death by natural causes

Initial concerns that Hvaldimir, the famous beluga whale - once thought to be a 'trained Russian Spy' - had been shot have now been dismissed by local police and veterinary officials.

08/10/2024
Written by Rob Hutchins
Photographs by Fred Buyle

Initial suspicions that the famous beluga whale Hvaldimir had been shot dead have been ruled out after a post-mortem carried out by the Norwegian Veterinary Institute concluded that probable cause of death was, instead, bacterial infection.

Hvaldimir, a local celebrity that since his discovery in 2019 became the focus of much speculation, including stories that he was a trained “Russian Spy”, was found dead off the coast of Stavanger on August 31 this year, sparking widespread public interest.

The circumstances surrounding his death had triggered initial concerns that the whale might have been killed by gunfire, prompting a police investigation. The case was later dropped by Norwegian authorities, however, due to a lack of evidence in support of the concerns.

Local authorities, alongside the Veterinary Institute and the Directorate of Fisheries decided that – given the scale of public interest in the matter – to release the findings of the post-mortem.

“The post-mortem examination was complicated by significant decomposition of the whale’s organs. Nevertheless, the report concludes that the most likely cause of death was a bacterial infection, possibly stemming from wounds in the whale’s mouth caused by a stick lodged there,” said Amund Preede Revheim, head of the North Sea and Environment section of the South-West Police District. 

It’s suggested that the lodged stick could have hampered Hvaldimir’s ability to feed, increasing the risk of infection.

“Importantly, there were no findings to suggest that the whale was shot,” said Revheim.

Hvaldimir Fred Buyle Norway beluga whale

As images in the media have previously shown, several superficial wounds were found in the skin around Hvaldimir’s rear chest cavity, abdomen, one forward crank, and at the tail fin. It was concluded that, due to the nature of these wounds, these were most likely caused “by birds pecking holes in the skin.”

Hvaldimir caught the world’s imagination when the adult male beluga whale was discovered in Norwegian waters in mid-spring 2019 wearing a man-made harness featuring the words ‘Equipment St. Petersburg’. While the origins of Hvaldimir are still unknown, it was this discovery that fuelled claims that he was trained as a spy by the Russian Navy. 

His name itself is a portmanteau of the Norwegian word for whale (hval) and the name of the Russian president, Vladimir.

Hvaldimir was found dead at the end of August this year by a father and son out fishing off Risavika Bay, in the southwest of Norway. The finding triggered an outpouring of public emotion, for whom the whale had become a local celebrity.

“Hvaldimir was not just a beluga whale; he was a beacon of hope, a symbol of connection, and a reminder of the deep bond between humans and the natural world,” read a social media post by Marine Mind, a non-profit organisation tracking the whale’s movements.

Initial suggestions that Hvaldimir had been killed by gunshot wounds were raised by the animal rights groups NOAH and OneWhale who prompted Norwegian police officials to open a criminal investigation into the whale’s death.

At 4.2 metres long, Hvaldimir was believed to have been between 14 and 15 years old when he died. The average life expectancy for a beluga whale is somewhere between 40 and 60 years.

For more from our Ocean Newsroom, click here

 

Written by Rob Hutchins
Photographs by Fred Buyle

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