Earlier this year, we posted “The Incredible Journey of Belugas Little White and Little Grey,” about the 6,000-mile transport in June 2019 of the two whales by air, land, and sea from an aquarium in Shanghai to a new home in Iceland in the world’s first beluga whale sanctuary.
After just over a year in Iceland, the two belugas have now moved closer to the open water sanctuary. From the sanctuary press release:
The SEA LIFE Trust is delighted to confirm that two beluga whales, Little Grey and Little White, are now safely in their new sea sanctuary care area at Klettsvik Bay in Iceland. The moving of the whales into the world’s first open water sanctuary for belugas was completed on Friday 8th August 2020 at 12.30 local time.
Little Grey and Little White are now in their bayside care pool and will need a short period of time to acclimatise to their new natural environment and all the outdoor elements before their final release into the wider sanctuary in Klettsvik Bay in the Westman Islands off the south coast of Iceland.
The expert team and the independent vets were with Little Grey and Little White throughout the move and said they are healthy and are feeding after the short trip from their landside care facility back to the sea.
This is the first time Little Grey and Little White have been in the sea since they were taken from a Russian whale research centre in 2011. Little Grey and Little White will now be assessed around the clock as they get used to being back in the ocean environment.
The belugas have lived in a temporary care facility for the past year, with preparations for the move to open water — including additions of more blubber to prepare for cooler temperatures, as well as being introduced to natural flora and fauna found in the ocean.
Here is short video of the whales’ last move to Klettsvik Bay in Iceland.
The poor things were scared, not knowing what was happening to them.
And that pool they were released in, isn’t large enough!
I hate humans and what we do to animals..
But on the other hand I love beef and spring lamb.
whenever environmentalists talk about whales , they never talk about the right of Indian’s and Eskimo tribes right to hunt and kill whales? Although they claim that right, they use 1800 gun technology to kill them now !