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 In news that quite simply makes Norwegian fishermen sound…well…paranoid, comes word that a Beluga whale outfitted with a Russian-made harness is a Russian spy.
According to reports, Norwegian fishermen fishing in Arctic Norway last week discovered a Beluga whale outfitted with a harness that contained text reading: “Equipment St. Petersburg.” The Beluga swam around the men for a number of days before the fishermen entered the icy waters to remove the harness, concluding that the harness was once a mount for an action camera.
Though it wasn’t immediately clear what the Beluga might be trained for, it raised alarms when it (leaned intently in the direction of the boat to listen in on the fishermen) began to rub up against the fishermen’s boat.
“This is a tame animal that is used to get food served so that is why it has made contacts with the fishermen,” explained Audun Rikardsen, a professor at the Department of Arctic and Marine Biology at the Arctic University of Norway in Tromsoe, northern Norway. “The question is now whether it can survive by finding food by itself.”
With major military facilities located in and around Murmansk on the nearby Kola Peninsula, some suggest that the whale was most likely (on leave) from the Russian Navy in Murmansk.
Though it is unclear if the whale is part of some training effort with the Russian military, the Soviet Union reportedly once trained whales for the purpose of searching for mines and other objects in nearby waters.
This is not the first time the Russian Defense Ministry attempted to procure marine life for unclear intentions. Back in 2016, the organization reportedly published a public tender to purchase five dolphins with “good teeth” for an unspecified training program.
Source: Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries
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