The world’s first sanctuary for Beluga whales is to be created in Iceland. The sanctuary, backed by the international Sea Life Trust, will be in a naturally protected bay some 32-thousand square metres in extent and sealed off from the open sea by nets.
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The first two Belugas will come from a former aquarium and amusement park in Shanghai, China, where they have been for 12 years. They are fully grown and are about four metres long.
It is hoped that the sanctuary will eventually become home to other Beluga whales released from captivity, but in no fit state to be released into the wild. The Beluga, also known as the white dolphin, is an Arctic resident, with its distribution limited to the Arctic seas north of Greenland, Canada, Russia and Scandinavia, including Iceland, of course.
Its conservation status is near threatened because of hunting, climate change, industrial pollution and oil and gas exploration in their habitat.*
Moving on, not all fences are political, although they may be of particular significance in eastern Europe.
The Polish government has announced that it is to construct a 1 230km long fence between it and its eastern neighbours; Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania and the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, not to keep out the people of those countries, but to stop wild boars getting into Poland.
Wild boars can carry African swine fever, a vicious disease that is a serious threat to domestic pigs.
Poland has a thriving pork industry and it wants to keep out wild boars and the possibility of African swine fever at any cost (the disease has an almost 100 percent fatality rate if it gets into a piggery).
The wire fence will be two metres above ground, but will also be buried deep underground, as wild boars are notorious diggers.
Staying with wild boars, the Japanese have developed a fearsome robot wolf to keep wild boars out of farmlands. The so-called ‘Super Monster Wolf’ is 50cm tall and 65cm long, it’s covered with fake fur and has flashing red eyes and when it detects an approaching boar it starts to howl.
It is apparently highly effective (I’m not entirely surprised, it would certainly keep me out of the fields).** The wild boar is fairly common throughout much of Europe, particularly in the east, and then right across to Japan.
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And here’s a remarkable coincidence and a brilliant tailpiece. The news is now a bit old, but everyone around the world must still be marvelling at the rescuing of 12 young boys and their football coach from a flooded cave in far northern Thailand after being down there for 17 days.
They are all safe and sound, thanks to the brilliant efforts of the Thai authorities and an extraordinary team of experts who gathered at the disaster scene from all over the world, including about 150 specialist divers (one of whom sadly died during the rescue operation).
However, the delightful irony in terms of my preceding story? Their junior football team is called the Wild Boars.
*The London Daily Telegraph.
**The Week: The Best of British and the Foreign Media.
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