“It’s quite an impressive animal, which is white (and) which seems calm. It doesn’t seem stressed, surfacing regularly,” fire service officer Patrick Hérot, from Normandy’s Eure region, told French broadcaster TF1.
Marine conservation group Sea Shepherd France said it was scrambling to assist the whale, sending drones and a boat to track it. It said the whale is likely to need food and help to guide it back toward its natural ocean habitat.
“It’s condemned to die if it stays in the Seine,” Lamya Essemlali, the group’s president, told TF1.
Belugas’ pale skin and bulbous foreheads make them easily recognizable. Known also for their sociability, they habitually live, hunt and migrate together in pods.
