HASthin and refusing to eat the food served to him, the beluga – which is in the Seine about 70 km from Paris – will be administered vitamins by the Eure prefecture on Saturday so that he finds health. appetite. “The vitamins are administered by a veterinarian with the usual means, arrowing (…). There is no reason to be impressed by this technique,” declared Isabelle Dorliat-Pouzet, general secretary of the Eure prefecture, during a press briefing on Saturday near the Notre-Dame lock. Dame-de-la-Garenne.
The beluga, a cetacean 4 meters in length, whose presence in the Seine is exceptional, still continued not to eat on Saturday, while it is in a lock of a dimension of approximately 125 meters by 25 meters since Friday. “He is a fairly emaciated individual and seems to have feeding difficulties,” said Isabelle Dorliat-Pouzet. Attempts to feed it, with dead herring and then live trout, have apparently failed.
Everything “in the interest of the animal”
Among the hypotheses to prevent the cetacean from perishing are the reopening “of the lock towards the sea, 160 km away, so that it can resume its journey” or keep it in the basin “so that it can regain strength. ‘appetite “. Asked about the possibility of extracting it from the basin, Isabelle Dorliat-Pouzet replied that this was not the preferred hypothesis, because the specialists are not certain “that the beluga is strong enough to withstand this manipulation”.
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Any decision will be made “in the interest of the animal” and “no decision has yet been taken” while analyzes are awaited, repeated the secretary general of the prefecture. Another element, “small spots” appeared, which can be natural due to the soft water, but which can also mean “other difficulties”, according to the same source.“The option of euthanasia has been ruled out”
The option of euthanizing the beluga, which is in the Seine, has been “discarded for the moment”, Lamya Essemlali, head of Sea Shepherd, the ocean defense NGO, told AFP on Sunday. that the cetacean is sick and not feeding. “The option of euthanasia has been ruled out for the moment because at this stage it would be premature because he still has vigor, a curious behavior: he turns his head, he reacts to stimuli, he does not ‘is not amorphous and moribund,’ said Lamya Essemlali, after a meeting with the prefecture, the French Office for Biodiversity, Pelagis and a Canadian cetacean expert. “His lack of appetite is surely a symptom of something else, an origin that we don’t know, a disease. He is undernourished and it is several weeks, even several months. At sea, he no longer ate,” continued Lamya Essemlali.
Asked about the chances of saving the animal, Lamya Essemlali confided that the experts and the authorities were faced with “a challenge”, where there is “little hope”. “We are all dubious about its ability to reach the sea by its own means. Even if we drove it with a boat, it would be extremely perilous, if not impossible,” she said.
Another hypothesis would be to extract it from the water and “take it to the sea to feed it and provide it with additional vitamins, to do a biopsy to have information on its origin and information on its state of health and what that makes him sick,” she said. In any case, it does not seem possible to leave it in the lock where the water is stagnant and hot. “He must be out within the next 24/48 hours, these are not optimal conditions for him,” explained the Sea Shepherd manager.
A different case of the orca that appeared in May
The beluga, which was “very calm” on Saturday and going back and forth in the basin “quietly”, was spotted on August 2 in the Seine. In May, an orca found itself in difficulty in the Seine between Rouen and Le Havre. The operations to try to save the cetacean had failed and the animal had finally died of starvation. According to Isabelle Dorliat-Pouzet, the situation between the killer whale and the beluga is “very different”. The orca “was more weakened than the beluga” and “had disappeared from the radar for a while”. They are “two different animals, the killer whale is less tolerant of fresh water than the beluga,” she explained.
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According to the Pelagis observatory, which specializes in marine mammals, this is the second beluga known in France after a fisherman from the Loire estuary brought one up in his nets in 1948. The beluga is a protected species from cetacean usually living in cold waters.