Hvaldimir
Sign in to saveHvaldimir (; – 31 August 2024) was a male beluga whale that fishermen near Hammerfest in northern Norway noticed in April 2019 allegedly wearing a camera harness. After being freed from the harness, he remained in the area and appeared used to humans. Speculation that he had been trained by Russia as a spy whale led to his being dubbed Hvaldimir, a portmanteau of Norwegian (whale) and "Vladimir", for Russian President Vladimir Putin. By 2023, Hvaldimir's range appeared to have expanded to include areas of the south-western coastline of Sweden. On 31 August 2024, Hvaldimir was found dead in the
Key facts
- Animal.name
- Hvaldimir
- Animal.image
- Hvaldimir 7209.jpg
- Animal.landscape
- yes
- Animal.caption
- Hvaldimir spyhopping to inspect a boat at Hammerfest Harbour
- Animal.species
- Beluga whale
- Animal.sex
- Male
- Animal.death_place
- Risavika, Rogaland, Norway
- Animal.death_cause
- Bacterial infection (suspected)
- Animal.known_for
- Suspected Russian spy
- Animal.namedafter
- Vladimir Putin
via Wikipedia infobox
~13 min read
Encyclopedic overview
9 sectionsContents
- Appearances and reactions
- Protection efforts
- Hvaldimir's life
- Interactions with people
- Death
- Theories and naming
- See also
- References
- External links
Hvaldimir (; – 31 August 2024) was a male beluga whale that fishermen near Hammerfest in northern Norway noticed in April 2019 allegedly wearing a camera harness. After being freed from the harness, he remained in the area and appeared used to humans. Speculation that he had been trained by Russia as a spy whale led to his being dubbed Hvaldimir, a portmanteau of Norwegian (whale) and "Vladimir", for Russian President Vladimir Putin. By 2023, Hvaldimir's range appeared to have expanded to include areas of the south-western coastline of Sweden. On 31 August 2024, Hvaldimir was found dead in the bay of Risavika, close to Stavanger in Norway. Activist groups claimed he died from gunfire, but the following necropsy confirmed that was not the case.
According to Ukrainian marine researcher Olga Shpak, the whale was named Andruha and was captured in the Sea of Okhotsk in 2013. The whale spent a year in St. Petersburg and then was moved to a Russian military naval base in Murmansk where it eventually escaped.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Hvaldimir” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.