▲ A man who looks like a trainer kicks a Belukha with his feet
In an aquarium in the Far East of Russia, a video of a man who is believed to be a trainer hitting and kicking'Belukha' (English expression Beluga) was being trained, and is being criticized for animal cruelty.
According to the Interfax news agency on the 18th,'Prima Media', a Russian Far Eastern media outlet, recently released a video that appears to have been filmed in the'Marshal Aquarium' in Maritime Province.
In this video, a man, who seems to be an aquarium trainer, hits and kicks Belukha while training.
'Freedom for Killer Whales and Beluga', a local animal protection group, pointed out that the behavior in the video was inappropriate and cruel through its own social network service (SNS) account.
The Aquarium said it had undertaken an investigation, stating that the Belukha were not injured.
In addition, he argued that it was possible to prevent this behavior because Belukha act aggressively with each other when it is in heat.
Beluga is an animal belonging to the order of the Cetaceans. It has a maximum body length of 4.5 m, a weight of 1.5 tons, and an average life span of 30 to 35 years.
It mainly lives in the Arctic Ocean and the Bering Sea.
In Russia, the existence of a whale prison that illegally captures and confines beluhana orca whales for sale in marine parks or aquariums in 2019 has been controversial.
At the time, environmental groups urged Russian authorities to release whales, claiming that the whales had serious health problems, including hypothermia due to the poor environment.
Faced with international criticism, the Russian government sent all the whales back to nature.
(Photo = SNS capture of'Freedom for Killer Whales and Beluga', a local animal protection organization, Yonhap News)