Young beluga whale struggling after relocation, marine mammal group says
SAINT FABIEN, Que. — It is unclear whether a young whale flown from a New Brunswick river to Quebec is able to eat or has joined other belugas, a marine mammal group says.
“The next few days will be critical,” Marie-Eve Muller of the Quebec City-based Group for Research and Education on Marine Mammals said in a release Tuesday.
The beluga, which is about two metres long, was released in Cacouna, Que., in the St. Lawrence Estuary last Thursday.
The group says satellite tracking places the whale off Saint-Fabien, about 65 kilometres downstream from Cacouna. The area is “very close to the downstream limit” of waters frequented by belugas during the summer, it says.