Decision
coincides with visit to enclosure by French marine expert Jean-Michel Cousteau
Reuters
in Moscow
Mon 8 Apr
2019 11.17 BSTLast modified on Tue 9 Apr 2019 00.50 BST
Russian
authorities have decided to free nearly 100 whales held in cages in the
country’s far east, according to reports.
Images of
the whales, kept in cramped enclosures in a bay near the Sea of Japan port city
of Nakhodka, first appeared last year, triggering a storm of criticism.
The
animals had been captured by a company that planned to sell them to China but
the Kremlin intervened and ordered local authorities to find a way of freeing
them.
After
months of delays, the decision to release the whales coincided with a visit to
the enclosures by the French oceanographer Jean-Michel
Cousteau, son of the famous marine expert Jacques
Cousteau.
“An
official decision has been taken to release all the animals into the wild,”
Oleg Kozhemyako, the governor of the Primorsky region, was quoted by the Tass
news agency as saying. “Scientists from Cousteau’s team and Russian scientists
will decide when and which animals to release.“
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