The fisherman and the 'spy whale'

Lives Less Ordinary

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.6 • 814 Ratings

🗓️ 6 November 2023

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Joar Hesten's mission to save a whale rumoured to have escaped from the Russian navy.

Norwegian Joar Hesten was fishing for cod in the Arctic when he came across a beluga whale wearing a harness. He helped to free the animal, but when he took a closer look at the harness he saw that it was labelled ‘Equipment of St Petersburg’. Theories started swirling that this whale had once belonged to the Russian military, and it was nicknamed Hvaldimir, the 'Russian spy whale'. As Hvaldimir's fame grew, Joar became determined to protect him from human contact.

Presenter: Emily Webb Producer: Saskia Edwards

Photo: Joar with Hvaldimir Credit: Aleksander Nordahl, DN/D2

Transcript

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0:00.0	On a winter's night in 1974, a crime took place that would obsess the nation.
0:06.9	It was an extraordinary news story.
0:09.1	The story of an aristocrat, Lord Lucan, who's said to have killed the family Nanny,
0:13.7	mistaking her for his wife, then somehow just disappeared.
0:18.0	One of the great mysteries in English criminal history.
0:20.7	We're still looking for Lucan.
0:22.1	It's honestly one of the most powerful
0:23.7	stories of my lifetime.
0:25.9	I'm Alex Fontunzelman.
0:27.3	This is The Lucan Obsession.
0:29.2	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:31.6	It's exhilarating.
0:33.6	It's like driving a car
0:35.2	under an avalanche,
0:36.4	but you're taunting the avalanche rather than trying to get away from it.
0:40.3	Amazing sports stories from the BBC World Service.
0:44.4	Find it wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
0:49.0	The beluga whale, he just comes straight towards our boat.
0:53.8	And as he approached, we saw that there was this, it looks like rope that he was stuck in.
1:00.0	Of course, our first thoughts was that, okay, this is a beluga oil that has come into some garbage that was floating around.
1:09.0	But as he came closer, we saw that there was like this structure to this thing.
1:14.5	It really looked like a harness.
	...

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