Remember back in 1992, when Regina Haug and her then husband Bing Crosby opened a nightclub in Idaho called “Cherry Bomb”? No? That’s ok. It doesn’t really matter.
What does matter is that Regina, founder of the nonprofit OneWhale, has been posting for the past few months on social media that scientists, trainers, veterinarians, and Charles Vinick, who all signed a letter in opposition to the move of Hvaldimir the beluga whale to Finnmark, don’t understand Norwegian culture and its government. But apparently Regina does, because she’s Norwegian (via Idaho, Orange County, California, and marriage).
Which is why in 2021, when OneWhale applied to net off a cove at Sjunkhatten National Park (about two hours by plane south of Hammerfest) to provide temporary safety for Hvaldi, the request was denied by the National Park Board, as the OneWhale plan was counter to the operational plan of the park.
Speaking of Hammerfest, there was the Norwegian Beluga Refuge (a sanctuary) proposed by OneWhale and the city, which was then denied by the national government. Of course, you can STILL find OneWhale advertising this project on their website, right next to a donate button.
Once the refuge was denied, the plan shifted to relocating Hvaldimir to be near wild beluga populations. The primary proposed location to move Hvaldimir to where he could integrate with local populations was Svalbard.
One thing I haven’t seen mentioned lately from OneWhale or Regina is their plan on how to deal with potential population hybridization should Hvaldi integrate with wild groups of Arctic belugas, especially as he had been sexually maturing and likely originated from Pacific waters. You see, there were concerns as to where he was captured, since the vast majority of Russian beluga captures have taken place in the Russian Far East, primarily from the Sea of Okhotsk (the same area where belugas are captured for Russian, Chinese, and Japanese theme parks and aquariums and the 18 belugas were captured for the Georgia Aquarium and its partner facilities). The solution to prevent hybridization as stated by OneWhale in its documentation to the Norwegian government? CASTRATION.
By the way, the proposal to move him to Svalbard was denied by the government.
So now, OneWhale proposed to move Hvaldimir to the backup location of Finnmark, which happens to be 200 miles from a Russian Navy beluga base. But OneWhale’s “experts” (it has a lot of “experts” that it refuses to name) determined that recapture by the Russians wouldn’t be an issue, an evaluation that seemed to disregard key facts, such as Hvaldimir being a trained military whale and that, with a current Russian moratorium on captures, his value as a military whale had increased (legally, there is a difference between recapturing an escaped animal and capturing wild animals). Should he swim across the border into Russia, he would no longer be monitored and nobody would know if he was recaptured for military use. But according to OneWhale, that was never as big a risk as boats or angry fisherfolk with guns.
OneWhale did actually get a provisional permit for the Finnmark relocation from the Fisheries Directorate (though the organization never really mentioned it was provisional). It turns out the Fisheries permit was contingent on a second permit from the Food Safety Authority, which had not been received at the time of Hvaldimir’s death. Further, the 90-minute in-water evaluation session conducted with former SeaWorld curator Keith Yip may have constituted a violation of the Fisheries permit, which prohibited training until the second permit from the Food Safety Authority was issued.
OneWhale/Regina (I’ll just start calling the organization OneWoman from here on out) disavowed a police statement which countered claims by OneWoman that Hvlad was shot. The police statement was based on preliminary necropsy results, shared with the police by the Norwegian Veterinary Institute, which had been tasked with performing the necropsy. OneWoman has attempted to invalidate the police statement by 1. stating that the veterinarians doing the necropsy have no experience with whales (although there are plenty of experienced experts who could participate or consult and necropsy protocols for belugas have been published and available for decades) AND 2. pointing out that the statement came from the local police station, not from the national police headquarters, and therefore they don’t know what they’re talking about.
OneWoman requested Hvlad’s remains, so a proper memorial could be held. I’m guessing a Viking funeral or something mirroring what the Lummi did with Tokitae, the Miami Seaquarium’s psychic orca. The Norwegian Veterinary Institute announced plans for the remains to be destroyed, as per national law, with the skeleton being sent to a natural history museum run by one of the country’s leading public universities. OneWoman posted on social media that the skeleton had been handed over to an aquarium. This is not only grossly false, but also designed to entice anger, since the topic of aquariums housing belugas remains controversial.
So who doesn’t understand Norwegian culture? Who is insulting members of the Norwegian government and academia with her false claims? OneWoman, that’s who.
And, if you’re wondering, her ex-husband is the grandson of the famous actor, but it’s easy to imagine that she would think of him being “Der Bingle” himself, because, as I see it, she lives in a world of imagination and half-truths. That’s OneWoman for ya.
TOP PHOTO Source: http://www.onewhale.org
UPDATE 21 Sept 2024 4:00 pm PDT: The post was edited to correct spelling errors.
