A beluga whale has been found off the coast of Norway wearing a harness and camera attachment, prompting speculation it escaped from a Russian military facility.
The white cetacean whale was spotted by fishermen in Arctic Norway as it swam around the freezing waters.
One of the men noticed it was wearing a tight harness, and bravely jumped in to remove it from the tame animal.
“When I was lying in the water, he came all the way up to the side, and I managed to reach the front buckle and open it,” he told Norway state broadcaster NRK.
The harness strap, which featured a camera mount, was emblazoned with "Equipment St Petersburg", according to the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries.
This has sparked concern the whale escaped captivity at the hands of the Russian navy.
Audun Rikardsen, an arctic and marine biology professor at the Arctic University of Norway, said it was “most likely that Russian Navy in Murmansk" was involved.
“We know that in Russia they have had domestic whales in captivity and also that some of these have apparently been released. Then they often seek out boats,” Mr Rikardsen told NRK.
Russia has major military facilities in and around Murmansk on the Kola Peninsula, in the far north-west of Russia.
Previous reports have pointed to the training of sea mammals by the Russian military, including work published by Norway's Aftenposten newspaper.
In 2017, Russian state-owned broadcaster TV Zvezda reported on the defence ministry’s intention to train white whales to guard naval bases and even kill intruders.
The plans were allegedly part of President Vladimir Putin’s hopes to boost the Kremlin's presence in the arctic.
Mr Rikardsen said he had checked with scholars in Russia and Norway who said there were no reported programmes or experiments that admitted to using beluga whales.
“This is a tame animal that is used to get food served so that is why it has made contacts with the fishermen,” said Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries spokesman Joergen Ree Wiig.
“The question now is whether it can survive by finding food by itself. We have seen cases where other whales that have been in Russian captivity are doing fine."
