An endangered beluga whale that was rescued on June 15 from Nepisiguit River in Bathurst, N.B., was returned to St. Larence Estuary to let it reunion with a pod in its natural habitat.
The rescue was completed by the officials from federal Fisheries Department Canada, marine mammal groups and scientists and involved the endangered mammal travel by air, land, and sea.
This juvenile two-meter-long male beluga whale had lost its way in New Brunswick’s Nepisiguit River. According to experts, it lost its way likely chasing a school of fish or due to an impulsive teenage drive for adventure. It was a healthy mammal, but was probably unable to leave the river on his own.
“We put him back in the St. Lawrence near a pod of belugas and he started to swim right away,” Marie-Eve Muller with the Group for Research and Education on Marine Mammals said Thursday evening.
“He seemed quite vigorous back in the water.”
During the rescue mission, the whale was coaxed into a net, and then transferred to a sling. It was also given an injection to keep it calm during the transport.
It was put on the back of a truck, and then taken to Bathurst, N.B., airport. It was then flown to Riviere-du-Loup, Quebec. It was then loaded on to a truck, transported to a port near Cacouna, and put on a boat. The young whale was set free in an area near a pod of belugas.
“It was very intense,” said Tonya Wimmer of the Marine Animal Response Society.
“There were a lot of people involved but it was a very co-ordinated activity. We discussed the best options beforehand so everyone knew the game plan. It went extremely smoothly because it was such good co-ordination.”
Wimmer said it is not yet known why this young whale moved to fresh water river.
“Many times it is because they are following fish that happen to be running. We have had some cases where it’s an animal that has just gotten confused and gets lost basically,” said Swimmer, a lecturer of marine mammalogy at Dalhousie University.
“It was a natural case for us to say we needed some sort of intervention to either herd the animal out of the river or try to capture it and take it out of the river.”
Scientists are currently monitoring the whale’s movements with a tracking device as it continues to swim upstream, said scientific director Robert Michaud of the Group for Research and Education on Marine Mammals
He said the whale’s tag is programmed to send signal when the whale breaches the surface up 250 times a day.
“It is possible that the beluga, recovering from its adventure, spends a lot of time at rest, near the surface,” said Michaud.
“The tag then could transmit all its signals within a few hours.”
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