Moscow: Dozens of orcas and beluga whales captured for sale to oceanariums have brought Russia’s murky trade into the spotlight, but efforts to free them have been blocked by government infighting. Russia is the only country where orcas, or killer whales, and belugas can be caught in the ocean for the purpose of “education”. The legal loophole has been used to export them to satisfy demand in China’s growing network of ocean theme parks.
Photos of a total of 11 orcas and 87 belugas crammed into small enclosures at a secure facility in the Far Eastern town of Nakhodka sparked a global outcry, and the Kremlin on Friday stepped in, saying the fate of “suffering” animals must be resolved.
“There have never been that many animals caught in one season and kept in one facility before anywhere in the world,” said Dmitry Lisitsyn, head of the Sakhalin Environmental Watch group, who has emerged as a point person in the campaign to release the whales captured last summer back into the wild. Russian investigators launched two probes into poaching and animal cruelty, while Russia’s environmental watchdog said it has refused to issue permits to export the whales.
But the investigations and any potential court case could drag on for months. The Russian government is split between the environment ministry that says the animals must be released, and the fisheries agency that defends their capture as part of a legitimate industry.
President Vladimir Putin has ordered his ministers to “decide on the fate of the whales” by Mar 1, a decree said on Friday. “The animals are suffering” and may die, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, adding that they “are being kept in conditions that are inadequate for such young animals of these species.”
200 ORCAS LEFT
The captured killer whales belong to the rarer seal-eating population of the species, which does not interbreed or interact with fish-eating orcas. The environment ministry has tried to list the seal-eating type as endangered, ministry representative Olga Krever said. “This population has only 200 adult animals” in Russian waters, she said. But the agriculture ministry, which controls the fisheries agency and oversees non-protected sea species, views orcas as competitors for Russia’s fish stocks and doesn’t believe they are under threat, Krever said, calling the dispute a “big problem.”
Marine mammal researchers say there are good chances of a successful release, but the fisheries agency told AFP that it “carries high risks of their mass death”. “Neither orcas nor belugas are endangered,” and are simply a resource that can be used according to existing legislation, agency representative Sergei Golovinov said. Though the animals in Nakhodka are unlikely to get green-lighted for export, their fate is unclear.