EDIT of March 30, 2022, at 2 p.m. The killer whale was found dead shortly before noon on Monday and will be towed for an autopsy, announced the Seine-Maritime prefecture. The Sea Shepherd France association announced the macabre discovery on Twitter.
The rescue operation failed. And the outcome is sad. The orca spotted in the Seine between Rouen and Le Havre (Seine-Maritime) was found dead this Monday noon, announced the association Sea Shepherd France.
His body will now be towed to the banks of the Seine, “where lifting means will be put in place to allow expert veterinarians and biologists to carry out an autopsy and sampling operations, aimed at collecting a maximum of information and try to establish the causes of the wandering and his death”, specifies the prefecture.
Sunday evening, a working group of experts had concluded, “unanimously”, that “the only possible solution”, was euthanasia, to put an end to his suffering.
By trying on Saturday to help the animal find its way back to the sea, its natural environment, the specialists had noted “an absence of liveliness, incoherent reactions to sound stimuli and erratic and disoriented behavior”. The cetacean, in distress, multiplied the “returns from one side to the other of the bank”.
The orca would suffer from “mucormycosis” and emit “cries of distress”
The animal presents “deep ulcerations and dermatitis, revealing necrotic lesions”, explained the prefecture on Sunday evening. The orca would suffer from “mucormycosis”, an emerging disease observed on marine mammals. “It is a condition […] likely to affect immunocompromised animals” and the disease would have reached “a very advanced stage, to the point that it would cause significant suffering to the animal”. “The sound recordings revealed vocalizations similar to cries of distress”, indicated the authorities.
If “the risk of transmission from animals to humans is very limited”, the prefecture nevertheless recalled that “the area in which the killer whale is found is prohibited for swimming, fishing and that the areas of water catchments are not fed or impacted by the Seine”.
Voices rise, wondering if everything has been implemented before arriving at this epilogue
The orca was first sighted on May 16 between Honfleur and Le Havre, near the Normandy bridge. The animal had probably arrived “already weakened” towards the Seine estuary. But it seems for the moment impossible to determine if the animal contracted this disease before or after its arrival in the river. However, it is likely that its condition deteriorated on contact with fresh water.
Voices have been rising since yesterday, wondering if everything has been implemented before arriving at this epilogue. The president of Sea Shepherd France particularly regrets that her NGO was not included early enough in the rescue operation.
For some specialists, including Eric Demay, cetologist quoted by The Parisian, it would have been necessary to feed the animal to “perk it up”. Because if the chances of survival were very slim from the start, “small miracles” can happen. It was not the case.