Experts struggle to save beluga whale lost in France's River Seine

euronews.com:

A beluga whale which strayed into France's River Seine was still not feeding on Sunday and showed signs of illness, leaving "little hope" for a successful outcome, experts said.

The four-metre long cetacean was spotted on Tuesday in the Seine. Its presence in the river is exceptional, as it usually lives in cold waters.

Since Friday evening, the beluga has been in a lock measuring about 125 metres by 25 metres, 70 kilometres northwest of Paris.

Lamya Essemlali, head of Sea Shepherd, the ocean defence NGO present at the scene, said that experts and authorities were faced with "a challenge" where there is "little hope", when asked about the chances of saving the animal five days after it was discovered.

Several attempts to feed it, including using herring, trout and even squid, have been unsuccessful.

On Saturday, vets had even administered "vitamins and products likely to give it an appetite" in view of the beluga's "physiological state", the Eure prefecture said in a statement on Sunday morning.

The authorities noted that the whale was calm but appeared thin and showed signs of "skin alterations due to its presence in fresh water".

According to Sea Shepherd, this lack of nutrition is not new. "His lack of appetite is probably a symptom of something else, an origin that we don't know, a disease. He is undernourished and it goes back several weeks, even several months. At sea, he didn't eat anymore," Essemlali explained.

On Sunday, there was little optimism about the animal's chances of survival and fears that it would suffer the same fate as an orca found in the same river last May were growing. Operations to try to save that creature failed and it finally died of starvation.

Sea Shepherd says it was ruled out the option of