A rescue operation requiring 80 people was still underway on Tuesday evening to rescue the cetacean, stuck in the Seine for several days.
The extraction of the beluga lost for a week in the Seine began this Tuesday evening, according to the prefecture of Eure, which is piloting this “extremely prepared” operation to try to save the cetacean. “We will have done the maximum and the best possible”, estimated a few hours earlier in front of the journalists the general secretary of the prefecture of Eure, Isabelle Dorliat-Pouzet.
This operation, launched shortly before 10 p.m. with the entry into action of around twenty divers and the mobilization of a total of 80 people, is not “won in advance”, according to her. “Nothing is decided”, tweeted the NGO Sea Shepherd France shortly before 11:30 p.m.
The cetacean, held since Friday in a lock on the Seine in Saint-Pierre-la-Garenne, about 70 km from Paris, will be placed in “a kind of hammock” then in a refrigerated truck which will transport it out of water , “on straw or another element of comfort”, bound for the coast.
“An Obstacle Course”
A seawater basin, in a lock in the port of Ouistreham, in Calvados, was made available to receive the animal overnight. He will stay there for three days, “the time we organize his repatriation at sea and observe his state of health”, according to the sub-prefect.
“Today is a great day for this beluga whale and for everyone involved in its rescue,” Sea Shepherd, the ocean advocacy NGO, said on its website.
“He will be taken out of the water and transported to a salt water basin where he will be placed under surveillance and will benefit from treatment, in the hope that his illness is curable. He will then be released at sea, with, it is hoped, the best chance of survival,” adds Sea Shepherd.
The NGO spoke of “an obstacle course” to manage a situation “still very unprecedented in France and for which no one is prepared”.
“The priority is to put it back in seawater”
A member of the Marineland team in Antibes, who arrived Monday evening at the largest marine zoo in Europe, considered that the operation was “out of the ordinary”, in particular because of the site.
The banks of the Seine “are not accessible to vehicles” at this location and “everything must be transported by hand”, explained Isabelle Brasseur. For the specialist, “the priority is to put it back in seawater”.
On Tuesday, the beluga was still feeding “very little” and its state of health was “stationary”, said Isabelle Dorliat-Pouzet. This delicate operation could especially induce stress in this cetacean, “which is a factor of death or discomfort for the animal” including for those in “very good shape”, she underlined.