Refusing to eat, lost beluga has signs of illness, leaving “little hope” to a happy outcome. For the moment, the option of euthanasia is “excluded” because “premature”, said Lamya Essemlali, president of Sea Shepherd France.
by (with AFP)
Almost a week after being discovered, the Béluga lost in the Seine still did not eat on Sunday August 7 and presented signs of illness, leaving “little hope” to a happy outcome. The option of euthanasia of the cetacean remains however “excluded” because deemed too premature “, according to Lamya Essemlali, the president of Sea Shepherd France, present on the scene. Asked about the chances of saving the animal, the spokesperson for the Ocean Defense and Protection NGO entrusted the Agency France-Presse that the experts and the authorities were now faced with “a challenge”, where there is “little hope”, evoking “a race against the clock”.
Since Friday evening, this four-meter animal, spotted Tuesday in the Seine and whose presence in this river is exceptional, is in the lock of Saint-Pierre-la-Garenne, in Eure. This lock, which measures approximately 125 meters by 25 meters, is located a hundred kilometers northwest of Paris.
The cetacean always refuses to feed
If the NGO Sea Shepherd has published a relatively optimistic message On Twitter , Monday, the cetacean is still in a stationary state. We do not observe “no degradation of his condition. He remains alert but still does not eat,” said M me essemlali. Herring, trout and even calamari … Several attempts to feed it have been in vain since Friday. “In view of the physiological state of beluga”, veterinarians had administered “vitamins and products likely to open their appetite” on Saturday morning the prefecture of Eure on Sunday morning. p>
If the beluga adopts “a calm behavior” in this Basin de l’Cluse de la Garenne where it has entered its own chief, “it is very emaciated and has skin alterations due to its presence in fresh water”, note the prefecture. According to Sea Shepherd, this absence of nutrition is not new. “His lack of appetite is surely a symptom of something else, an origin that we do not know, an illness. It is underway and that dates from several weeks, even several months. At sea, he was no longer eating “Explained M me essemlali.
The time is hardly optimistic about its chances of survival, and fear exists that it undergoes the same fate as an orca found in the same river in May and which could not be saved . However, the option of euthanizing the beluga remains “excluded for the moment”, says M me essemlali, because “at this stage, it would be prematurely because he still has Vigor, curious behavior: he turns his head, he reacts to stimuli, he is not amorphous and dying “.
his repatriation in the English Channel is under study
Among the imaginable hypotheses are an extraction or an opening of the lock with the hope that he regains the Channel. “We are all skeptical about his ability to join the sea on his own. Even if we” drive “it with a boat, it would be extremely perilous, if not impossible,” she said.
In addition, the hypothesis which seemed more to hold the rope on Sunday was to extract it from the water, then to “transport it to a place of care so that it can then be [put it back]”, announced the Sub-prefect of Evreux, M dorliat-pouzet. There remains also the case “to let him end his life quietly as someone very sick who no longer has much life expectancy,” she added. In any case, it does not appear viable to leave it in the lock where the water is stagnant and warm. “He must go out within 24/48 hours,” said Sea Shepherd manager on Sunday afternoon.
According to the Pelagis Observatory, specialist in marine mammals, beluga “has an arctic and subarctic distribution. Although the best known population is in the St. Lawrence Estuary (Quebec), closest to our Côtes is at the Svalbard, an archipelago located north of Norway (3,000 km from the Seine) “. According to the same organization, it is the second beluga spotted in France after a fisherman of the Loire estuary had raised one in his nets in 1948.