'Russian spy' whale was shot dead: animal rights groups

Animal rights groups said Wednesday that gunfire killed a beluga whale that rose to fame in Norway after its unusual harness sparked suspicions the creature had been trained by Russia as a spy.

The organisations NOAH and One Whale said they had filed a complaint with Norwegian police asking them to open a criminal investigation.

Nicknamed "Hvaldimir" in a pun on the Norwegian word for whale (hval) and its purported ties to Moscow, the white beluga first appeared off the coast in Norway's far-northern Finnmark region in 2019.