"A Russian colleague said they don't do such experiments, but she knows the navy has caught belugas for some years and trained them - most likely it's related to that," he said.<doc-sep>Attached the whale's harness was a GoPro camera mount with a label, tracking it to St. Petersburg A group of Norwegian fishermen were left with more questions than answers after repeatedly being approached by a whale they believed to be a Russian spy. While fishing off the coast of Ingoya — a small Norwegian village — last week, Joar Hesten told a local television station that a large white beluga whale swam up to his crew’s boat, wearing a harness around its body. Get push notifications with news, features and more. The whale had been following the boat for some time, tugging on loose straps hanging from the ship. “It came over to us, and as it approached, we saw that it had some sort of harness on it,” Hesten told broadcaster NRK, the New York Post reported. Attached to the harness was a GoPro camera mount with a label, tracking it to St. Petersburg, the New York Post reported. The harness was later removed by one of the fishermen and shown to a Russian scientist, who explained it was not equipment scientist would use, prompting concern the whale is a spy, BBC reported. Beluga Whale with harness discovered in Norway, Inga - 29 Apr 2019 beluga approaching Norwegian ship | Credit: Jorgen Ree Wiig/Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries/Handout/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock Russia has a naval base in the area where the fishermen were when the whale approached their boat, according to BBC. Marine biologist Professor Audun Rikardsen told BBC the harness “was attached really tight around its head, in front of its pectoral find and it had clips.” There was no camera. “A Russian colleague said they don’t do such experiments, but she knows the navy has caught belugas for some years and trained them — most likely it’s related to that,” Rikardsen explained to BBC. RELATED VIDEO: Beluga Whale Sprays Kid Martin Biuw of the Institute of Marine Research in Norway also spoke on the discovery saying, “If this whale comes from Russia — and there is great reason to believe it — then it is not Russian scientist, but rather the navy that has done this,” the New York Post reported. The Russian navy has since denied that the whale was being used to spy on anyone, explaining in a statement to a Russian broadcaster, “We have military dolphins for combat roles, we don’t cover that up,” BBC reported. “If we were using this animal for spying do you really think we’d attach a mobile number with the message ‘please call this number? '” The use of marine animals for military purposes isn’t new.<doc-sep>A beluga whale that may – or may not – have been trained to spy for Russia appears to have defected to Norway, refusing to stray more than a few miles from the small northern harbour where it was found on Monday and entertaining locals with tricks. “He’s so comfortable with people that when you call him he comes right up to you,” Linn Sæther, a resident of Tufjord on the Arctic island of Rolvsøya, told Norwegian public broadcaster NRK, which has launched a poll to find a name for the mammal. Sæther said locals had been able to pet the whale, which was found at sea by Norwegian fishermen on Sunday wearing a harness fitted with a mount – apparently for a camera or weapon – and stamped with the words: “Equipment St Petersburg.” Linn Sæther poses for a selfie with the beluga whale in Tufjord, Norway. The beluga performs twirls and leaps and happily retrieves plastic rings, she said, before swimming up to the dockside with its mouth open, as if looking for a fish in reward. “It is a fantastic experience, but also a tragedy,” she said. “It’s clearly used to being given tasks and having something to do,” Sæther said. “It reacts when you call it or splash your hands in the water. You can see it’s been trained to fetch and bring back whatever is thrown for it.” Tor Arild Guleng told the broadcaster the whale had followed his boat on a one-hour voyage from Rolvsøya back to Hammerfest. “It followed me, like an obedient dog without a lead,” Guleng said. “No wild animal seeks you out, sticks its head up and allow you to stroke its nose.” Initial speculation was that the whale had escaped from a Russian military facility. Audun Rikardsen of Tromsø’s Arctic University of Norway said the Russian navy in Murmansk, the headquarters for Russia’s northern fleet, could be involved. The Russian defence ministry has denied running a sea mammal special operations programme and Norway’s special police security agency (PST), which is examining the harness, has not yet concluded its investigation into where the whale came from. An alternative theory, based on the whale’s tricks and the English inscription on its harness, is that it made its way to northern Norway after escaping from captivity in St Petersburg, Florida – except there are no aquariums or marine parks in that St Petersburg and in any case the distance is too great, Rikardsen said. Wherever the whale came from, experts are now concerned about how it will survive. “It’s hard to see how it will manage on its own,” Rikardsen told NRK. “We know whales released from an aquarium can find it difficult to adapt to life in the wild.” He said people should stop feeding the whale so it can learn to forage on its own and hopefully join a pod of fellow belugas – if one will accept him. Jørgen Ree Wiig of the Norwegian fisheries directorate told the broadcaster: “We are determined in any case to keep track of him, because he is now our responsibility.”<doc-sep>
Norway: Whale with harness on spotted near Ingøy It’s a story that sounds too strange to be true: A human-friendly beluga whale found wearing a strange harness is a Russian spy. But it is possible that is exactly what has happened, according to experts. And the friendly beluga whale is not the first aquatic mammal used to aid intelligence efforts. The tame beluga repeatedly approached Norwegian boats off Ingoya, an Arctic island about 415km (258 miles) from Murmansk, where Russia’s Northern Fleet is based and near to where Russia has a naval base. After the friendly whale kept making appearances, a Norwegian fisherman went to investigate and spotted the unusual harness the creature was wearing. Norwegian marine biologist Professor Audun Rikardsen said the harness “was attached really tightly round its head, in front of its pectoral fins and it had clips”. And he sensationally claimed the belt had a GoPro camera holder - but no camera - and a label sourcing it to St Petersburg. Russia news: This friendly beluga whale is suspected of spying for Russia He said: “A Russian colleague said they don’t do such experiments but she knows the navy has caught belugas for some years and trained them - most likely it’s related to that.” Russian reserve colonel Col Viktor Baranets was interviewed about the whale by a Russian broadcaster and brushed off Norway’s concerns. But the military chief didn’t deny the whale could have escaped from the Russian navy. He said: “If we were using this animal for spying do you really think we’d attach a mobile phone number with the message ‘please call this number’? Russia news: The whale swims off safely after the harness is removed “We have military dolphins for combat roles, we don’t cover that up. “In Sevastopol (in Crimea) we have a centre for military dolphins, trained to solve various tasks, from analysing the seabed to protecting a stretch of water, killing foreign divers, and attaching mines to the hulls of foreign ships.” The dolphin facility in Crimea used to be under Ukrainian control, but was seized by the Russian navy in 2014, when Russian forces took over the peninsula. Russia isn’t the only country to imply marine mammals to aid intelligence efforts. Russia news: The pin is Ingoya, and Murmansk is to the right