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Final week, because the Oslo Fjord was basking within the sunshine and filled with swimmers, boaters and kids having fun with their final week of summer time trip, it had a customer: a 1,300-pound walrus named Freya.
This week is totally different. Not solely has college began up once more and the climate turned, however the walrus, who had been a supply of pleasure and had turn into one thing of a world movie star, is lifeless.
On Sunday morning, the Norwegian authorities killed Freya, saying that she posed too massive a risk to people who did not take heed to repeated warnings to keep away from her. Shifting her out of the realm was “too excessive danger,” officers added.
Environmentalists and Freya’s followers on social media stated that the choice to kill her, simply three days after the warning that she may need to be put down, was hasty and pointless.
However the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries stated in a press release that it was the one choice after the general public didn’t heed the warnings.
“I’m agency that this was the appropriate name,” the director normal of the directorate, Frank Bakke-Jensen, stated within the assertion. “We have now nice regard for animal welfare, however human life and security should take priority.”
The Norwegian Institute of Marine Analysis had thought of shifting Freya out of the realm, Mr. Bakke-Jensen added, however “the intensive complexity of such an operation made us conclude that this was not a viable choice.”
Shifting a 1,300-pound mammal isn’t simple. Freya would have wanted sedation after which to be caught in a web to stop her from drowning earlier than being moved out of the realm.
In Norway, Freya has dominated the information since she arrived in June, with trackers, Fb teams and nearly day by day articles chronicling her plight. A Fb web page referred to as “Freya the Walrus — The place is she now?” had been monitoring her. Since Sunday, the group, which has greater than 1,000 members, has been awash with unhappy feedback and condolences.
The nation’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Retailer, stated he supported the conclusion that Freya must be put down, telling a broadcaster that it was “the appropriate choice.” Freya’s physique will now be examined, in line with the Directorate of Fisheries. It’s unclear what’s going to occur to it afterward.
Freya made appearances off the coasts of Britain and varied different European international locations, together with the Netherlands and Denmark, for not less than two years.
“Now she involves this posh, overpopulated seashore, and she or he is lifeless,” stated Trine Tandberg, 62, who runs a youngsters’s theater in Oslo. She stated that she had been following the information reviews about Freya intently.
“She hasn’t executed something to anybody,” Ms. Tandberg stated. “That’s what’s making so many people actually, actually indignant about this entire factor.”
The Oslo Fjord, the place Freya had been spending her time, is a densely populated space that features Oslo, Norway’s capital. About two million individuals reside within the area, in a rustic of simply over 5 million.
Walruses are social animals and barely enterprise someplace alone, which can be why Freya appeared to love being round individuals and why she had sought out a busy space.
“I’m stunned by the pace of the choice” to kill her, stated Fredrik Myhre, a marine biologist for the World Extensive Fund for Nature in Norway. “They need to have been extra affected person.”
One choice would have been to regulate the crowds who went to see Freya, cordoning off the realm or fining individuals who ventured too shut, specialists stated. Different prospects included making loud underwater noises or spreading the scent of predators to discourage her from the realm, in line with Dan Jarvis, director of welfare and conservation at British Divers Marine Life Rescue, a charity based mostly in England.
However these choices weren’t easy: Deterrent sounds and smells may additionally disturb different animals within the fjord and scare them away, Mr. Myhre stated.
Specialists in different international locations the place Freya had visited over the previous two years expressed disbelief at her destiny.
“Norway in a short time selected for the final choice,” stated Annemarie van den Berg, the director of SOS Dolfijn, a Dutch marine rescue group that had been concerned with Freya when she appeared within the Netherlands final 12 months.
“Freya by no means stayed in the identical place too lengthy,” Ms. van den Berg stated. When the Dutch authorities handled Freya within the fall of 2021, she stated, they centered on preserving individuals away from the animal.
Whereas Freya could appear cute when napping within the sunshine, Ms. van den Berg added, “She’s a mammal and due to this fact harmful.”
The Norwegian fisheries directorate had repeatedly informed individuals to keep away from Freya, however the recommendation had principally been ignored, a spokesman stated final week. The authorities warned that the walrus confronted the prospect of being killed if they may not persuade onlookers to remain away.
Swimmers had approached very near the animal in her closing days, taking selfies and generally even throwing issues at her, a spokesman for the directorate stated. Regardless of the warnings, nevertheless, no human accidents had been reported.
Mr. Myhre, the marine biologist, put the duty for Freya’s destiny on those that wouldn’t take heed to calls to maintain their distance. Individuals wouldn’t take a selfie subsequent to a 1,300-pound bull, Mr. Myhre stated, including, “You shouldn’t do this with a walrus, both.”
The timing of the killing has additionally been questioned. Summer season trip in Norway was coming to an finish, and rain has moved again into the realm, so the crowds had been prone to ebb.
There are roughly 225,000 walruses within the wild, in line with the World Extensive Fund for Nature. They typically reside in ice-covered waters in Canada, Norway and Russia, and in Greenland and Alaska. They’re dropping a few of their regular habitat as ice sheets soften due to local weather change.
Mr. Jarvis, the director at British Divers Marine Life Rescue, acknowledged the risk posed to people by such wild animals, however, he stated, that was not sufficient cause to kill Freya.
“We don’t go round killing all the nice white sharks simply because certainly one of them at one level may assault somebody,” Mr. Jarvis stated.
Final 12 months, Mr. Jarvis was a part of the workforce that handled Wally, one other walrus, who spent about six weeks off the coast of southwest England in an space crowded with boats. To attempt to cease Wally from inflicting harm to the vessels, the native authorities supplied him with a platform to lie on.
Glenn Murphy, who runs a boating and fishing enterprise within the Oslo Fjord, stated that locals’ response to Freya’s destiny had been blended, principally due to the dangers that somebody may have been damage or killed, together with youngsters.
“To me, it appeared like she was on the lookout for companionship,” Mr. Murphy stated. “That might’ve inadvertently was a horrible accident.”
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