Fishermen in Norway had an interesting encounter with a white beluga whale last week near the fishing village of Inga.
“We were going to put out nets when we saw a whale swimming between the boats,” fisherman Joar Hesten told Norwegian broadcaster NRK. “It came over to us, and as it approached, we saw that it had some sort of harness on it.”
The whale was really interactive, trying to retrieve items from the boat and accepting fish by hand. The same sort of behavior seen in trained marine mammals such as dolphins and sea lions such as in the U.S. Navy’s Marine Mammal Program (NMMP) which has been around for 50 years.
Anyway, the harness on the whale, which had a Go-Pro on it, was later recovered by Norwegian Fiskeridirektoratet (the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries) employees (shown in the above video working from the Zodiac) and it said “Equipment St. Petersburg” on it in English.
Clik here to view.
(Foto: Jørgen Ree Wiig, Fiskeridirektoratet)
Clik here to view.
(Foto: Jørgen Ree Wiig, Fiskeridirektoratet)
Of course, Russian State Media says it was all “alleged” but does call him “Comrade Belugov” which is awesome.
