The Artic animal that strayed all the way to France’s Seine River has died.
A Beluga whale that was first spotted in the Seine River, dwelling in the stretch between Paris and the city of Rouen, was removed from the river early Wednesday.
Authorities later pronounced the whale dead despite the rescue efforts, according to Reuters.
The marine creature was first spotted in the Seine River early last week when French fire services captured drone footage of the whale lingering in their waters.
While it’s unclear how the cetacean, an animal normally inhabiting Artic waters, managed to make its way all the way to Northern France, the French authorities’ rescue mission to save the creature was nothing short of extraordinary.
A team of nearly 60 marine experts took part in the 1,800-pound whale’s extraction, which required the use of a large net and took almost six hours, according to Aljazeera.
Believe it or not, weighing nearly 2,000 pounds is considered dangerously thin for the beluga whale, whose appetite experts attempted with no avail to stimulate with vitamins and live trout.
According to the environmental organization Sea Shepherd France, which has been tracking the rescue mission on social media, the whale was discovered to “no longer have any digestive activity”, explaining its lack of eating.
Following the spectacle, the far-from-home beluga was loaded onto a refrigerated truck en route to the French port town of Ouistreham, where it would’ve resided in a saltwater basin and had its health monitored by experts.
