Spy or runaway whale? Beluga whale Hvaldimir was able to escape from an Arctic base where he was being trained by the Russians

The appearance five years ago of a male beluga In several Norwegian cities this has sparked all kinds of speculation. Hvaldimir – as this mammal was baptized in its time, combining the word hval (whale) and the name of Russian President Vladimir Putin – attracted the attention of the world not only for its great docility, but also for the leash with which it was attached. a camera on the back with a enigmatic label in which we could read “St. Petersburg team.”

Since its first sighting in 2019, a whole series of theories have been put forward as to whether it could be a spy whale” from Russia, due to its ability to crash into ships, interact with salmon fishermen, and even steal (and return) GoPros lost in the ocean.

He enigma which surrounded the solitary beluga, found dead at the end of last August, could finally have been solved thanks to a BBC documentary which reconfigures the origin of this mysterious specimen.

The documentary, Secrets of the Spy Whaledestroyed the “profession” which until now had been attributed to Hvaldimir. He was not a spy as people believedbut a “fugitive” who managed to escape intensive training to which he was subjected by the Russian army to become the “guardian” of a naval base in the Arctic Circle.

At least that’s the theory that suggests the doctor Olga Chpak, An expert on marine mammals and a former researcher on these animals in Russia in the 1990s, she is “100% sure”. this whale belonged to the Russian army and escaped from a base in the Arctic, where she was being trained to protect him.

This doctor also reveals what could be the original name of this beluga. The expert explains in this documentary that when the animal was seen in Norway, Russian veterinarians and trainers spread the message that They were missing “a beluga named Andruha”.

According to Shpak, Andruha/Hvaldimir would have been first captured in 2013 in the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, in the far east of Russia. A year later, he was transferred from a facility owned by from the St. Petersburg dolphinarium to the military program in the Russian Arctic, where their trainers and veterinarians stayed in touch.

The beluga appeared to be qualified to identify targets, sticking her nose to point out different locations, she was also mischievous. “What I heard from the guys at the commercial dolphinarium that used to have it was that Andruha was smart, so it was a good choice for training. But, at the same time, he was some kind of thugan active beluga,” specifies the doctor.

And that is precisely what would have happened. When Russian forces started working with this mammal in open water, Believing that the animal would not swim away, he simply abandoned them.

From “fame” to a sad end

After learning to feed yourself, Hvaldimir It spent several years traveling south along the Norwegian coast, and in May 2023 it was seen as far away as Sweden.

In Norway, Hvaldimir became a celebrity attracting up to 300 tourists per day. OneWhale later reported that the cetacean had sparked an unregulated tourism industry, with diving instructors and tour operators selling group trips to swim and dive with it.

Tourism was causing him visible stress because people They offered him harmful objects and sometimes they put them in his mouth. For this reason, the animal suffered life-threatening injuries on your teeth and in your mouth. On different occasions, he encountered ship propellers and sharp objects, the OneWhale organization reported.

Hvaldimir was moved to a fjord in the eastern region of Finmark, where authorities were confident he could fit in with other specimens of the same species.

However, the NGO OneWhale announced in September on its Instagram account the sad news of the death of the beluganaming a gunshot as the cause of his death. The autopsy confirmed shortly afterwards that Hvaldimir/Andruha had died after a stick stuck in his mouth.

A premature deathsince the average lifespan of belugas is between 35 and 50 years. Hvaldimir was 15 years old when he died.

Animals trained since the Cold War

Russia has always refused to confirm or deny that this beluga was trained by its military.

THE speculation about spying on marine animals They date back to the Cold War. The United States and Soviet Union trained beluga whales, dolphins, sea lions, fur seals, sharks, rays, turtles, and seabirds for their sensory and physical abilities.

The Soviet strategy was that belugas, dolphins, sea lions and fur seals They will search for underwater mines and other objects under the sea. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, time indicates that dolphins were sold to Iransince the suspension of the marine mammal training program.

Today, the Russians have military dolphins trained to solve different tasks, from analyzing the seabed to kill foreign divers And place mines on the hulls of foreign ships in order to protect a body of water. The dolphin facility is in Sevastopol, Crimea, and before 2014 it was under Ukrainian control.

In 2016, a new program under the supervision of the Russian Defense Ministry began seeking new recruits to train dolphin and seal fighters for the Russian Navy. Actually, time indicates that He offered up to $24,000 for five bottlenose dolphins.

The Marine Mammal Program in the United States is currently training bottlenose dolphins and California sea lions to detect, locate, mark and recover objects (and threats) in ports, coastal areas and the open ocean, explains the Center for Naval Information Warfare. Pacific (NIWC Pacific). Threats include explosives, mines, (enemy) divers, and manned or unmanned surface or submarine vessels, the US Department of State says.

Currently, marine animals are not only used as spies by different governments and are therefore subject to other dangers. Cetaceans, for example, They are victims of military experiments. Animal ethics reports that armies sometimes test the effects of their new weapons on moving targets and therefore attack animals.

The objective is observe the resistance of the animal body to attacks or extreme situations that soldiers themselves can experience during conflicts. Additionally, animals can also be surgical experimental subjects so that military doctors learn how to treat weapon wounds and their healing capacity.