MONTREAL -- A young beluga that was rescued from a New Brunswick river and released in Quebec last year has been spotted alive and well off the coast of Nova Scotia near Ingonish, a marine mammal research group said Friday.
The Group for Research and Education on Marine Mammals said in a statement that the whale was spotted last week near Ingonish, Cape Breton, in the company of another male beluga.
"According to the images that have been transmitted to us, the Nepisiguit beluga appears to be in good health. He appears vigorous and is swimming well," said veterinarian Stephane Lair of the Universite de Montreal.
On July 14, the rescued beluga was identified in Ingonish, off Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, by Catherine Kinsman of the Whale Stewardship Project:
"I was called to give a talk in the community about two vagrant belugas,” Kinsman said in a statement issued by the Marine Animal Response Society (MARS). “While watching videos of them, I kept looking at the gray beluga’s skin and a scar pattern I was sure I’d seen before. Then photos of the Nepisiguit beluga matched! I was so excited to identify him.”
He was in the company of another unidentified male beluga.
The rescued whale was saved in a complex operation in June 2017 that saw the endangered marine mammal travel by land, sea and air before being returned to the sea near Cacouna, Que.
The group tracked the whale by satellite in the hopes of determining whether the release would be successful, but lost track of it 19 days later.
"We suspected that the animal survived the operation and we can now confirm this,” Véronique Lesage, Research Scientist and beluga specialist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, said in the MARS statement. “This raises some questions, however, about whether this animal will ever contribute to the recovery of the St. Lawrence beluga.”
Robert Michaud, the scientific director of the Group for Research and Education on Marine Mammals (GREMM) and coordinator of the relocation operation, said researchers were pleased to see the animal appeared healthy, but were puzzled as to why it travelled so far away from where it was released.
"We had to wait a long time to hear from the Nepisiguit beluga and we would have preferred that he stay with other belugas in the St. Lawrence Estuary,” said Michaud. “We will try to gather more information on this vagrant individual to understand why the animal has moved away from the St. Lawrence Estuary, and whether or not it will eventually return to this location.”
In the meantime, Michaud asked the public not to get too close to the adventurous mammal in the hopes it will eventually go back home.
"The best chance for these animals to return to their fellow belugas is if we minimize our interactions with them," he said in the statement.
With files from The Canadian Press.
