Russia releases last of captured whales into the wild

Reuters
Updated
PRIMORYE TERRITORY, RUSSIA - NOVEMBER 8, 2019: Beluga whales from the controversial Adaptation Centre for Sea Going Mammals located near Nakhodka, unofficially known as 'whale jail', are released from the Professor Kaganovsky research vessel into the wild in the Sea of Japan, off Russia's Pacific coast; on October 24, a board of experts at the Russian Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography (VNIRO) decided that the remaining 50 beluga whales kept in the adaptation centre be released in the Sea of Japan, off the Lazovsky Nature Reserve, and not in the Sea of Okhotsk as was planned before; in 2018, it was discovered that 90 wild belugas and 11 wild orcas were kept in the so-called 'whale prison' in Primorye Territory to be sold to Chinese amusement parks. Yuri Smityuk/TASS (Photo by Yuri Smityuk\TASS via Getty Images)
Beluga whales from the controversial Adaptation Centre for Sea Going Mammals located near Nakhodka, unofficially known as 'whale jail', are released in the Sea of Japan. (Photo by Yuri Smityuk\TASS via Getty Images)

MOSCOW, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Russian authorities said on Sunday they had completed the release of dozens of captured beluga whales whose plight sparked an appeal by Hollywood celebrities and the intervention of President Vladimir Putin.

The mammals, caught last year to be sold to marine parks or aquariums in China, were being kept in cramped conditions in a bay near the Pacific port of Nakhodka along with 11 orcas. Russian media dubbed their enclosures a "whale jail."

"An operation on the release of the sea mammals to their natural habitat in (the region of) Primorye has been completed," the Russian Research Institute for Fisheries and Oceanology said in a statement.

"All the remaining belugas were released in the Bay of Assumption ... on Sunday, Nov. 10," it said, adding that the operation had started five days earlier.

The plight of the orcas, which were being held with 87 beluga whales, triggered an international outcry and celebrities including Leonardo DiCaprio supported a petition that drew nearly 1.5 million signatures calling for their return to the ocean.

The Kremlin had ordered local authorities in the Russian Far East to intervene and officials started releasing them in batches in late June.

The way the animals were released - which saw them transported for six days across 1,800 km (1,100 miles) - had been criticised by Greenpeace and international scientists who have said it had been rushed, was conducted in secret and may have put the animals at risk of dying. (Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin Editing by Helen Popper)